On the anniversary of the day Israel wept, the FBI is warning Americans that terrorism may come to the United States.
Monday marks one year to the day since Hamas terrorists left parts of southern Israel the scene of death and human atrocities. It also marks one year since Israel launched its campaign to bring down Hamas, a military effort that has since morphed to include Hezbollah to Israel’s north.
The FBI noted that Oct. 7 comes amid “consistent calls by foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) to their supporters seeking to provoke violence in the West.”
The warning said the anniversary “as well as any further significant escalations in the conflict, may be a motivating factor for violent extremists and hate crime perpetrators to engage in violence or threaten public safety.”
“Over the past year, we have observed violent extremist activity and hate crimes in the United States linked to the conflict,” the warning said.
The warning noted that public gatherings “present attractive targets for violent attacks or for hoax threats by a variety of threat actors, including violent extremists and hate crime perpetrators.”
The warning highlighted the threat of what it called “lone attackers to conduct violence in the United States.”
The warning said individuals motivated by terrorist propaganda “could act alone to commit an attack with little to no warning.”
“Be aware of your surroundings at all times and report suspicious activities to the authorities,” the FBI notice said.
Police departments in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, and Philadelphia have all increased patrols, according to CNN.
Last month, the FBI reported that during 2023, it recorded 1,832 hate crimes against Jewish people, up 63 percent from 2022 and the highest ever recorded since data was first collected in 1991, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
The ADL noted that hate crimes against Jewish people made up 58 percent of all hate crimes in 2023 and 68 percent of hate crimes where religion was a factor.
“At a time when the Jewish community is still suffering from the sharp rise in antisemitism following Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre in Israel, the record-high number of anti-Jewish hate crime incidents is unfortunately entirely consistent with the Jewish community’s experience and ADL’s tracking,” Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL CEO, said.“Hate crimes are uniquely harmful, traumatizing both the individual and their community.”
In his column in the New York Post, Michael Goodwin noted how the Hamas attack exposed a darkness in Western society in what he called the “explosion of antisemitism in America and Europe.”
”Just as Israel was caught off guard by the Hamas terrorists, the outpouring of support for those savages on elite college campuses and the streets of New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington as well as London and Paris has been a rude awakening of its own,” Goodwin explained.
“It’s as if a venomous snake had been in hiding and suddenly found a chance to emerge and strike,” he wrote.
