In early 2017, a wave of more than 2,000 bomb threats were made against Jewish Community Centers in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, and Denmark. [1] Two arrests and two convictions were made in connection with the threats: Michael Ron David Kadar, a dual American-Israeli citizen, who received a ten year sentence, [2] [3] along with Juan M. Thompson, a former journalist, who received a five year sentence. [4]
Jerry Silverman of the Jewish Federations of North America said the threats were part of a "coordinated effort" to intimidate American Jews. [5] In February, during an interview on CNN, U.S. Congressman Jerrold Nadler said that some supporters of Donald Trump were responsible for the threats. [6] Trump denounced the JCC bomb threats and anti-Semitism, [7] and said that this may be a case of someone trying to make others look bad. [8]
In an op-ed for The Baltimore Sun , deputy editor Tricia Bishop said the threats represent a growing attitude of racial intolerance in the United States, but probably no specific group or person was responsible for the threats. She implored readers to "stand up ... before it's your children they come for". [9]
In March 2017, two persons were arrested on separate charges of making a number of the bomb threats:
A 19-year-old Jewish Israeli-American named as Michael Ron David Kadar, was arrested in March 2017 in Ashkelon, Israel and charged with responsibility for "dozens" of the threats. [10] Kadar had earlier been rejected from enlistment in the Israel Defense Forces due to mental health issues. [11]
According to Israeli police, Kadar had used "advanced technologies" to disguise his voice and mask the fact the calls were originating from Israel. [10] According to court documents, Kadar allegedly advertised on the dark web the service of threatening any school for $30. [12] Kadar's defense attorney said he has a brain tumor, which may have influenced his behavior. [13] He was suspected of threatening over 2,000 different institutions in the US, Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia including the Israeli Embassy in Washington, the Israeli consulate in Miami, schools, malls, police stations, hospitals and airlines. His threats reportedly caused fighter jets to be scrambled, planes to dump fuel and make emergency landings, and schools to evacuate.
In April 2017, an indictment against Kadar was filed in an Israeli court charging him with several crimes including an attempt to extort a United States senator, "publishing false reports causing public panic, conspiring to commit a crime, hacking computers to commit a crime, and violations of money-laundering laws". In the same month, a similar indictment was filed against him in a federal court in Florida charging him with 28 crimes, and he was separately charged with 3 additional crimes in a federal court in Georgia. Israeli authorities reportedly refused to extradite him to the US, preferring to try him in Israel. [14] [15] In June 2018, he was convicted on hundreds of counts including charges of extortion, publishing false information that caused panic, computer offenses, and money laundering. [16]
In November 2018, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison, plus a fine and 1 year probation. [17] Kadar was not named in Israeli courts because he was tried as a minor, but he was identified in indictment papers issued by the US. [18] [17] He would have been sentenced to 17 years if not for his mental issues: autism spectrum and paranoid delusions. Described as highly intelligent, his crimes earned him $240,000 in Bitcoin, worth over $1 million at the time of the sentence. Kadar refused to hand over the password to his Bitcoin digital wallet. [19]
Juan M. Thompson, a former journalist for The Intercept , was charged with responsibility for at least eight of the incidents. [20] According to media reports, Thompson had called in the threats in an attempt to frame a woman whom he had previously dated. [21] According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the woman had been the subject of previous harassment by Thompson, which included an alleged attempt by him to falsely report her for possession of child pornography. [22] On 13 June 2017, Thompson pleaded guilty to sending bomb threats to Jewish community centers. [23]
A bomb threat or bomb scare is a threat, usually verbal or written, to detonate an explosive or incendiary device to cause property damage, death, injuries, and/or incite fear, whether or not such a device actually exists.
A Jewish Community Center or a Jewish Community Centre (JCC) is a general recreational, social, and fraternal organization serving the Jewish community in a number of cities. JCCs promote Jewish culture and heritage through holiday celebrations, Israel-related programming, and other Jewish education. However, they are open to everyone in the community.
Alan Morton Dershowitz is an American lawyer and law professor known for his work in U.S. constitutional law and American criminal law. From 1964 to 2013, he taught at Harvard Law School, where he was appointed as the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law in 1993. Dershowitz is a regular media contributor, political commentator, and legal analyst.
Zeev Rosenstein is an infamous Israeli drug trafficker.
Swatting is a criminal harassment act of deceiving an emergency service into sending a police or emergency service response team to another person's address. This is triggered by false reporting of a serious law enforcement emergency, such as a bomb threat, murder, hostage situation, or a false report of a mental health emergency, such as reporting that a person is allegedly suicidal or homicidal and may or may not be armed, among other things.
In the United States, a common definition of terrorism is the systematic or threatened use of violence in order to create a general climate of fear to intimidate a population or government and thereby effect political, religious, or ideological change. This article serves as a list and a compilation of acts of terrorism, attempts to commit acts of terrorism, and other such items which pertain to terrorist activities which are engaged in by non-state actors or spies who are acting in the interests of state actors or persons who are acting without the approval of foreign governments within the domestic borders of the United States.
Preetinder Singh Bharara is an India-born American lawyer and former federal prosecutor who served as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 2009 to 2017. He is currently a partner at the law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr. He served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for five years prior to leading the Southern District of New York. According to The New York Times, Bharara was one of the "nation's most aggressive and outspoken prosecutors of public corruption and Wall Street crime" during his tenure as a federal prosecutor.
Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States, was involved in multiple security incidents, including several assassination threats and plots, starting from when he became a presidential candidate in 2007. Secret Service protection for Obama began after he received a death threat in 2007, while serving as the junior United States senator from Illinois and running for president. This marked the earliest time a candidate received such protection before being nominated. Security was increased early for Obama due to fears of possible assassination attempts by white supremacist or other racist groups or individuals against the first African American major party presidential nominee.
Ross William Ulbricht is an American serving life imprisonment for creating and operating the darknet market website Silk Road from 2011 until his arrest in 2013. The site operated as a hidden service on the Tor network and facilitated the sale of narcotics and other illegal products and services. Ulbricht ran the site under the pseudonym "Dread Pirate Roberts", after the fictional character from The Princess Bride.
Joshua Bonehill-Paine is an English far-right nationalist, internet troll, and convicted criminal from Yeovil, Somerset. Styling himself as a "nationalist, fascist, theorist and supporter of white rights", he ran a blog called The Daily Bale which published several racist and anti-immigration hoaxes, as well as false accusations against his opponents. He has described himself as "a proud anti-semite".
Rasmea Yousef Odeh in Arabic رسمية يوسف عودة is a Palestinian Jordanian and former American citizen who was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine convicted by Israeli military courts for involvement in the 1969 Jerusalem supermarket bombing. Odeh claimed that the confessions she claimed were obtained under torture, and that the charges were political. She was sentenced to life in prison in Israel and spent 10 years in prison before she was released in a prisoner exchange with the PFLP in 1980. After her release in a prisoner exchange, she immigrated to the United States, became a U.S. citizen, and served as associate director at the Arab American Action Network in Chicago, Illinois.
A large number of Australian schools received hoax bomb threats in late January and early February 2016. Other similar phone threats, including school shootings and chemical attacks, were also received by a number of schools across Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. A total of 591 threatening calls were received by Australian schools.
Juan M. Thompson is a former African-American journalist who was later convicted for cyberstalking and making several bomb threats to Jewish Community Centers in the U.S.
Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center is a mosque in Bloomington, Minnesota, United States.
Geoffrey Steven Berman is an American attorney who served as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 2018 to 2020. He is a partner at the law firm Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson.
This timeline of antisemitism chronicles the facts of antisemitism, hostile actions or discrimination against Jews as a religious or ethnic group, in the 21st century. It includes events in the history of antisemitic thought, actions taken to combat or relieve the effects of antisemitism, and events that affected the prevalence of antisemitism in later years. The history of antisemitism can be traced from ancient times to the present day.
On January 6, 2021, supporters of President Donald Trump attempted to overturn his November 2020 election loss to Joe Biden by attacking the U.S. Capitol Building, which disrupted the joint session of Congress assembled to count electoral votes to formalize Joe Biden's victory. By the end of the month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had opened more than 400 case files and issued more than 500 subpoenas and search warrants related to the riot. The FBI also created a website to solicit tips from the public specifically related to the riot and were especially assisted by the crowdsourced sleuthing group Sedition Hunters. By the end of 2021, 725 people had been charged with federal crimes. Two years after the attack, that number had risen to 1,000. Nearly three years later, over 1,200 people had been charged. These federal cases are handled by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia (D.C.). State cases, of which there are fewer, are handled in the D.C. Superior Court.
The United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., became the meeting place of the United States Congress when the building was initially completed in 1800. Since that time, there have been many violent and dangerous incidents, including shootings, fistfights, bombings, poisonings and a major riot.