By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews
When two packages with bombs inside were intercepted after they had circumnavigated the globe, there was a lot of relief that they had been found before disaster struck. What was less publicized were the locations to which these packages, which originated in Yemen, were sent: Two synagogues in Chicago. Even less well-known was to whom these packages were addressed, according to Yehudit Barsky, director of the American Jewish Committee’s division on Middle East and International Terrorism.
“One of the packages was intended for a Chicago synagogue, and the name of a crusader was on the package,” Barsky told JTNews during an early November visit to Seattle. But, she added, “we don’t know exactly what that means.”
This is what Barsky, a fluent Arabic speaker whose job entails pinpointing who and where in the world terrorism originates, does know: When she says crusader, she means the Christian soldiers and zealots who plundered the Middle East and Europe 700-900 years ago, forcibly converting anyone in their path to follow Christ. She also knows that 80 years ago, when the Muslim Brotherhood first gave rise to radical Islam, they began to refer to Christians as crusaders, but with the meaning somewhat perverted.
“Essentially, we are in a new assault on Islam by the Western world, we are on a new crusade,” Barsky said. But here are the differences: “There is no such thing as Muslims versus pagans, which was in the 7th century, and Jews and Christians are different, that they’re people of the book and you must protect them,” she said. “It’s Muslims against everyone else, and everyone else is a pagan, including Christians and Jews.”
And then, of course, there’s Israel.
For these extremists, “Israel is a dagger, stabbing the heart of the Middle East because it’s a non-Muslim entity in the middle of the Arab world,” Barsky said.
Though most Islamist groups’ ideologies don’t meld even with each others’, a point of agreement is that one day the entire world will be ruled by a single caliphate.
“In looking at that, there is no room for Israel. At all,” Barsky said. “There is also no room for the United States.” But the idea of a Jewish state, in particular in that spot, “becomes a very convenient excuse for many things.”
In the past two years, Jewish institutions have increasingly become targets of extremists–and not only by members of radical Muslim groups.
Wendy Rosen, executive director of the AJC’s Seattle chapter, said that when she took Barsky to the FBI’s Seattle offices, agents filled the room because of the interest in the attention given to Jewish organizations.
“My takeaway from that is that the threat is very real,” Rosen said.
Barsky said law enforcement agencies are seeing increased surveillance against Jewish institutions in the past two years with the intent of instigating an attack.
“Not every single incident that has occurred over the last two years has had possible Jewish targets or surveillance of Jewish targets — but a significant number have,” she said. “It’s become a cause of great concern.”
She pointed to lone wolves like Naveed Haq, who shot six women, killing one, at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle in 2006, and William Long, who killed one soldier and injured another at a military recruitment center in Little Rock, Ark. in June 2009. What they had in common was a supposed religious motive, though neither was known to have studied or trained with radical Muslim clerics or groups.
“The individual who carried out the [Arkansas] attack looked at different targets and he decided on the military target, but as a secondary target he was looking at Jewish institutions,” Barsky said. “Jews have increasingly become a target of Islamic radicals because of their ideology, because their ideology is anti-Semitic.”
Barsky is careful to point out that when she talks about Muslims in these cases, she means radical Muslims. While the extremist movement continues to grow and gain legitimacy, as recent reports are showing that the Taliban is being invited to participate in talks in Afghanistan for example, if there is to be change it must come from within.
“Iraqis have become very angry about this,” Barsky said, referring to the sectarian violence that took place there after the start of the U.S. invasion. “There was such an incredible amount of outrage within Iraq about Muslim terrorists killing Muslim civilians that there was a change in Iraq. And people speaking out against it in Iraq, I think, that is an example of what the solution is.”
So how should the Jewish community protect itself? There are no specific threats against any local agencies at this time. In the Puget Sound region, SAFE Washington, a notification system administered by the Jewish Federation, alerts agencies and law enforcement to any possible threat.
In New York, law enforcement officials rolled out a “See something, say something” campaign after the 9/11 attacks that asked people to be aware of their surroundings and to report anything suspicious. It’s a campaign that should resonate in the Jewish community as well.
“We need to be vigilant, we need to be aware of what is going on outside of our institutions,” Barsky said. “In other words, be aware of any types of surveillance.”
The campaign is starting to be rolled out across the country, most recently in New Jersey in just this past week.
“Homeland security begins with hometown security, and everyone has a role to play in keeping our country safe and secure,” said Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Nov. 22.