Director of the FBI Christopher Wray says that the domestic terror threat from the Israel-Hamas war is increasing. Fox News. Wray said there have been an increase of threats and encouraged vigilance due to those threats. This is a change in tune compared to Wray's previous comments where he said there were no specific threats due to the war. The warning comes after heightened tensions after Hamas declared a "Day of Jihad" on Friday.
At least one politically motivated hate crime did occur over the weekend, with a landlord in Illinois attacking a tenant and her son because they were Palestinian. CBS News. The woman was severely injured in the stabbing while her six year old son was killed by the attacker, a 71 year old. The man has been charged with murder and hate crimes and was accused of using anti-Muslim slurs during the attack.
My Comment:
It's very clear that tensions are high over the war between Israel and Hamas, and I am actually surprised how little violence there had been in response to it. Other than the incident in Illinois, the only other attacks outside of the combat area I am aware of is the murder of a teacher in France and an attack on the Israel embassy in China. Given how angry both sides are you would have thought that more people would have been killed.
The murder in Illinois seems like a one-off incident. The man seemed deranged and decided to punish a six year old for the actions of a terror group that the child didn't even understand. He obviously wasn't part of any larger group or terror campaign. It's just a lone wolf attacker that killed a couple people he knew because he was angry about the war.
I have said for awhile now that the threat really isn't from major terror groups like ISIS or al-Qaeda but from lone wolf attackers. Given the genuine amount of surprise from pretty much everyone about this war I doubt any major terror group had an opportunity to plan a major attack, so any major terror attack that happens would have been in the pipeline already. Even Hezbollah, was caught by surprise by this war and have had trouble organizing their forces to join it, and they are in the region.
The threat could be from both sides of the conflict, as the attack in Illinois shows. Given how horrible Hamas behaved in Israel it would not be surprising if people go "eye for an eye" against Muslim and Palestinian targets. Radical Muslims are obviously the bigger threat, along with their far left allies, but it's very possible that an attack could come from either side of this conflict.
What really strikes me that there hasn't been any attacks on rallies or protests. People are angry enough when they aren't riled up but with most of these protests having counter-protests I am surprised they have not devolved into active brawls. And they are very obvious targets for a lone wolf attacker of either stripe. It's why I strongly advise avoiding going to any of these rallies regardless of their politics. People are just way too angry about this war and tensions are very high.
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