By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

The annual assessment released Wednesday warns of possible threats from violent extremists driven by the heated political environment in the US as well as foreign and domestic threats from terrorist groups and others inspired by conflicts abroad. It also comes amid a wider conflict in the Middle East after Israel assassinated Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and began a ground offensive in Lebanon. Iran retaliated on Tuesday by launching nearly 200 missiles at Israel.

A senior DHS official told reporters Wednesday that the department is still working to figure out what Iran’s escalatory attack on Israel in recent days could mean for US security.

“It’s of course true that events in the Middle East over the last 12 months have contributed to this heightened threat environment and continue to do so, and we’re in a constant effort to evaluate and monitor what’s happening abroad to determine what implications it has for here in the homeland,” the official said.

The official also noted that the attack from Iran, paired with the one-year anniversary of Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel last year, could “drive particular violent extremists here in the homeland to accelerate or look to take action on a timeline that may not have been anticipated.”

“We are literally in the earliest days of trying to understand what exactly Iranian intentions might be,” the official said.

Some of those intentions of Iran and other countries, according to officials and the report itself, are to sow confusion and chaos in the US 2024 presidential election.

“China, Iran, and Russia will use a blend of subversive, undeclared, criminal, and coercive tactics to seek new opportunities to undermine confidence in US democratic institutions and domestic social cohesion,” the report warns.

Threats to elections, according to the department’s report, manifest in a variety of ways, including misinformation from foreign actors attempting to confuse voters about when and where they should go to place their vote.

On the cyber front, US officials expect Chinese government-backed hackers to continue their efforts to burrow into critical US computer networks for leverage in the event of a conflict with the United States.

 

Jews in the United States

One of the threats is that towards Jews in the United States tripled in the one year since the deadly October 7 terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas.

More than 10,000 antisemitic incidents occurred between October 7, 2023, and September 2024 – up from 3,325 incidents the prior year. That marks the most incidents recorded in 12 months by the organization since it began tracking threats in 1979.

Since last October’s terrorist attack, “Jewish Americans haven’t had a single moment of respite.” 

The new preliminary figures released ahead of an upcoming full report by the organization come as police agencies across the country have ramped up patrols around Jewish and Muslim institutions as a precaution in response to the escalating conflict in the Middle East, Monday’s October 7 anniversary and the Jewish High Holidays.

In April, the Council on American-Islamic Relations said it had received 8,061 reports of anti-Muslim bias in 2023, the highest number in the 28 years the group has tracked hate.

ADL’s threat figures included more than 150 incidents of physical assault, more than 1,840 acts of vandalism, and more than 8,000 antisemitic incidents involving verbal or written harassment.

The organization noted at least 1,200 antisemitic incidents occurred on US college campuses over the past year, representing a 500% spike from the previous year’s data in the same category.

 

Palestinian Flag Raised At Harvard:

US colleges and universities became a flash point earlier this year after thousands of protesters took to campuses from coast to coast to demonstrate in support of Palestinians facing bombardment from Israel’s military response to the October 7 terror attack. 

According to the FBI, which enforces federal hate crime laws and collects statistics on acts of violence, threats to Jews in the U.S. far exceed any other category of crimes based on religion.

The Jewish community is uniquely – uniquely – targeted by pretty much every terrorist organization across the spectrum,” said FBI Director Christopher Wrayi in testimony before Congress

“And when you look at a group that makes up 2.4%, roughly, of the American population,” Wray said, “it should be jarring to everyone that that same population accounts for something like 60% of all religious-based hate crimes.”

In a joint announcement, the FBI and DHS said: “Jewish, Muslim, or Arab institutions — including synagogues, mosques/Islamic centers, and community centers — and large public gatherings, such as memorials, vigils, or other lawful demonstrations, present attractive targets for violent attacks or hoax threats by a variety of threat actors, including violent extremists and hate crime perpetrators.”

The agencies assessed that foreign terrorist organizations will likely continue to “exploit narratives” surrounding hostilities involving Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran, to incite lone attackers toward violence in the US.

Despite talk of a unity government, Palestinian leadership is as bitterly divided as it has been for decades.

Following a brief conflict in 2007, the Palestinian Authority split into two. The secular Fatah party, led by Mahmoud Abbas, controlled the authority in the West Bank, while its Islamist rival, Hamas, governed in Gaza.

 

The Palestinian Side

Despite talk of a unity government, Palestinian leadership is as bitterly divided as it has been for decades.

Following a brief conflict in 2007, the Palestinian Authority split into two. The secular Fatah party, led by Mahmoud Abbas, controlled the authority in the West Bank, while its Islamist rival, Hamas, governed in Gaza.

Since then, Palestinian representatives have held over a dozen reconciliation talks to try to bridge the divide, the last taking place in Beijing in July 2024. While several of these meetings have yielded joint agreements, such as the recent “Beijing Declaration,” none have led to the different factions working more closely together.

The current Palestinian Authority president, 88-year-old Abbas, is especially unpopular. First elected in 2005 to a four-year term, he unilaterally extended his term in 2009, declaring he would remain in office until the next election. But he has not allowed elections to be held since then. Summing up the views of many, analyst Khaled Elgindy described Abbas today as “an erratic and small-minded authoritarian with a virtually unbroken record of failure.”

That helps explain why, according to a September 2024 poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, 84% of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip want Abbas to resign.              

When asked about a hypothetical presidential election between the leaders of both Hamas and Fatah, 45% of Palestinians reported they would rather just sit out the election. The question had to be hypothetical – elections are not even on the horizon. In fact, Palestinians in the West Bank or Gaza have not voted in presidential or legislative elections since 2006. And three-quarters of Palestinians see no prospect of elections taking place any time soon.

With no elections in sight, Palestinians have undertaken several grassroots initiatives to try to enact democratic reforms from the ground up.

For example, in November 2022, a Palestinian Popular Conference was held in several cities. It called for reforming Palestinian institutions to be more democratically representative of the 14 million Palestinians living around the world. Meetings were held in Gaza and Haifa, and Palestinians from around the world joined in person and virtually.

But Palestinian Authority forces in the West Bank violently cracked down on the gathering in Ramallah and detained several conference leaders. The harsh repression signaled to many that Abbas and the Palestinian Authority were scared of an alternative, democratically elected Palestinian leadership emerging.

 

 

For updates click hompage here