In the aftermath of the shootings in Los Angeles last August, RJ editor Aron Hirt-Manheimer asked Kenneth Stern, the American Jewish Committee's expert on antisemitism and extremism, to explain why such incidents are becoming more frequent and what we can do to stop them. Mr. Stern is the author of A Force Upon the Plain: The American Militia Movement and the Politics of Hate.
How could someone just walk into a Jewish Community Center, fire on five people, including three young boys, and then shoot a Filipino-American mail carrier nine times at close range?
Buford Furrow could. As a true believer in the doctrine of Christian Identity, he did not see his victims as human. Christian Identity teaches that Jews are the spawn of the devil, and that blacks and other people of color (called "mud people") are a "pre-Adamic" creation (pre-Adam and Eve). According to its twisted version of the Book of Genesis, Adam and Eve begat Abel, whose descendants are white, "Aryan" types; and Cain is the seed of the union between Eve and Satan, whose descendants are the Jews. The "mud people" are the tools of the Jew-devils in their war to destroy the white Aryans. Therefore, killing Jews is required to preserve white Christians -- "the real chosen people."
What is the origin of Christian Identity?
It's an offshoot of British Israelism, a nineteenth-century ideology claiming that the British, not the Jews, are the true descendants of the lost tribes of Israel. British Israelism was imported into North America in the late 1800s and the early years of the twentieth century, influencing William Cameron, editor of automaker Henry Ford's antisemitic newspaper The Dearborn Independent, who published a book entitled The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem, which blamed Jews for everything from Christ-killing and Satanism to communism and capitalism. By the late 1930s, Christian Identity had evolved from British Israelism into a full-blown antisemitic theology. The 1944 novel, When?: A Prophetical Novel of the Very Near Future, by "H. Ben Judah," distributed by the British-Israel Association of Greater Vancouver and popularized by Wesley Swift, a Ku Klux Klan member and founder of the Church of Jesus Christ -- Christian, was one of the first tracts to propose one of the central tenets of today's Christian Identity movement: that Jews are the biological descendants of the devil. Swift's most hardened disciples included some of the most notorious antisemites on the American scene -- William Potter Gale of the Christian Defense League; James Wickstrom of the Posse Comitatus; James Ellison of The Covenant, The Sword, and The Arm of the Lord; Thom Robb of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan; and Richard Butler of the Aryan Nations.
How large is the Christian Identity movement in the United States?
It consists of approximately 90 ministries in 34 states and has a membership of about 35,000. Its most prominent figure is Reverend Pete Peters, who supplements his LaPorte, Colorado-based church with a radio program and a website, from which he promotes a racist and antisemitic ideology.
What does he preach?
Jews invented the Holocaust; the gas chambers are a hoax; the U.S. federal government, which he calls "ZOG" for Zionist Occupational Government, is a smokescreen created by Jews in order to subjugate whites; and America is God's exclusive gift to white Christians.
Is Christian Identity any more of a threat than the KKK, neo-Nazis, and other racist and antisemitic groups?
The greatest threat posed by Christian Identity is that it provides disparate white supremacist factions with a unifying theology. The websites of many white supremacist groups propagate Christian Identity ideas or link to Christian Identity sites, where anyone can download the classic antisemitic forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and buy hundreds of books, videos, and audiotapes with titles such as "The Bible is not a Jewish Book," "Jewry: A False People, False Promises, A Counterfeit Nation," "The Cabala and the Witchcraft Connection," "God Commands Racial Segregation," and "The Cain-Satanic Seed Line." Internet users can also obtain listings of Christian Identity radio broadcasts over shortwave or download audio versions of these programs. Some individuals are drawn in by the appeal of familiar, though distorted, theological references. Others, who see the world through racist and antisemitic eyes, find in Christian Identity a "religious" layer of justification for their prejudices.
Does this theology incite violence?
Christian Identity is more than a theology; it is a call to action. Buford Furrow's van contained not only ammunition, but the book War Cycles/Peace Cycles by former American Nazi Party member Richard Kelly Hoskins. Hoskins is best known in Christian Identity circles for advocating solo or small-cell acts of terrorism against the enemies of God. Those who kill Jews, blacks, homosexuals, or abortion providers in the noble cause of defending the white race are honored with membership in the "Phineas Priesthood." "The Phineas Priest is to Christendom," writes Hoskins, "as the Kamikaze is to the Japanese, the Shiite is to Islam, and the Zionist is to the Jew."
A number of recent attacks against Jews, people of color, and gays were perpetrated by individuals working alone. Is this what we can expect to see in the future?
Unfortunately, yes. In recent years, in an effort to prevent law enforcement agencies from infiltrating Christian Identity groups and linking them to specific acts of terrorism, their leaders have shifted tactics, organizing small cells that can fly below the government's radar. The new scheme, known as "leaderless resistance," was coined by Louis Beam, a former Klan member who once terrorized Vietnamese fisherman in Galveston and later became "ambassador at large" of the Aryan Nations. I quote from his writing: "All individuals and groups operate independently of each other and never report to a central headquarters or single leader for direction or instruction.... Participants in a program of Leaderless Resistance through Phantom Cell or individual action must know exactly what they are doing, AND EXACTLY HOW TO DO IT."
In 1992, after Randy Weaver's surrender at Ruby Ridge, 160 extremists, among them Pete Peters and Louis Beam, gathered at Estes Park, CO, where they formed a "Sacred Warfare Actions Tactics" (SWAT) committee and embraced Beam's "leaderless resistance" strategy. Convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, who had contacted a Christian Identity compound near the Oklahoma-Arkansas border just days before the bombing of the Murrah Federal Office Building, may have been following the "leaderless resistance" model. And dozens of members of small-cell terrorist groups with the plans and means for acts of domestic terrorism have been arrested in recent years for plotting to attack trains, assassinate political leaders, blow up government buildings, and build biological and/or chemical weapons.
How can we defend ourselves against these so-called "lone wolves"?
First, we have to help America understand that people like Furrow are not "wackos" and "nut cases" who we can write off. They are domestic terrorists driven by theologies and ideologies that glorify antisemitism, racism, homophobia, and violence.
We also have to make sure that our law enforcement agencies are empowered to monitor and, if appropriate, infiltrate these groups. This has to be done within constitutional limits, especially as the FBI has violated civil rights in the past. But the agency should be encouraged to monitor information that is in the public domain, such as the Internet postings of hate groups.
Do you know of any organizations that perform effective community organizing against Christian Identity groups?
One is the Seattle-based Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment, led by Bill Wassmuth, a former parish priest from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. In 1986, his home became the target of an Aryan Nations pipe-bomb attack. Fighting back, Wassmuth founded the Coalition, which brings together churches, synagogues, civil rights, and human rights groups to counteract the far right in Colorado, Wyoming, Washington, and surrounding areas. The Coalition encourages mainstream Christian groups to join in combating Christian Identity and utilizes the Internet to fight hate groups. Along with the American Jewish Committee, it helped establish Coloradans United Against Hatred, or cuah.org, the first virtual community to fight hate crimes. In addition, it organized an innovative response to an Idaho Aryan Nations march, collecting monetary pledges from people who live along the route. Realizing their march would actually raise funds for human rights groups, the Aryan Nations cancelled. For more information, contact the Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment, PO Box 21428, Seattle, WA 98111-3428, (206) 233-9136, http://members.aol.com/ncamh
Another grassroots group deserving of our support is the Illinois-based Center for New Community, led by Reverend David Ostendorf. Earlier this year, the Center learned from Pete Peter's website of his plans to hold a Christian Identity seminar in the small Mississippi river town of Quincy. Ostendorf educated the local clergy about Christian Identity and 15 local pastors contacted the local hotel manager, who cancelled the white supremacist meeting despite a significant loss of revenue. Later that month, Ostendorf convened a meeting of about 75 local leaders at that same hotel, teaching them about Christian Identity and its strategy to recruit Christians at conferences and Bible retreats, and how to build moral barriers against hatred at the community level. For more information, please contact the Center for New Community, 6429 W. North Avenue, Suite 101, Oak Park, IL 60302, (708) 848-0319, e-mail newcomm@newcomm.org, website http://www.newcomm.org
Is there anything else we can do?
Yes. Aside from what should be "easy" answers, like more sensible gun control and hate crimes legislation, we also have to challenge our academic institutions to create an integrated discipline of "hate studies." Such intellectual energy and theoretical guidance is crucial, as America will become, within our children's lifetimes, populated by a non-white majority. This prospect will likely be used by white supremacists as a recruitment lure.
Is the U.S. government taking this threat seriously enough?
No, and the government is itself a target of white supremacists who believe that a regime which treats religious and racial minorities equally is treasonous, blasphemous, or both.
We need our political leaders to treat this threat with the same sense of urgency as they do foreign terrorists who plot the assassination of Americans on U.S. soil. If Furrow were a foreigner, members of Congress would surely have called for full-scale congressional hearings into the movement which encouraged his action. Yet, despite the deaths of 168 people in Oklahoma City and the outrage in Los Angeles, our national leaders have yet to convene such hearings into the racist, antisemitic, and homophobic subculture that preaches and carries out violence against U.S. citizens.
Can we do anything to protect our institutions from antisemitic terrorism?
We must make sure that the security of Jewish institutions is adequate enough to serve as a deterrent. Buford Furrow had investigated, and dismissed, three potential Jewish targets and judged them too secure before coming upon the North Valley Jewish Community Center. At the same time, we don't want to give the haters a "victory" by turning our houses of worship and other communal structures into fortresses.
Let me say, in closing, that Bill Wassmuth and Reverend David Ostendorf have proven that racist extremists can be exposed and stopped through community organizing and effective tactics. They have stood up to the haters. All of us, including our political and academic leaders, must do no less.
|
UAHC Resources
The UAHC Ida and Howard Wilkoff Department of Synagogue Management has prepared a list of specific recommendations to maintain the physical, emotional, and spiritual security of Reform congregants and synagogues. To receive a free copy, please contact Maud Prince at (212) 650-4040, fax (212) 650-4239, e-mail synagoguemgmt@uahc.org. The UAHC Department of Jewish Education has created educational materials designed to help schools, communities, and families respond to issues of hatred, violence, and safety. For a free copy, contact Alex Carnes at (212) 650-4110, fax (212) 650-4229, e-mail acarnes@uahc.org, website http://uahc.org/educate/. |
Back to Winter 1999
Copyright © 1999, Union of American Hebrew Congregations
Back to UAHC home page