SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
In the past week, multiple attacks have taken place in the U.S. that the FBI is now investigating - an attempted attack at the mayor's residence in New York City last weekend, an attack at a Michigan synagogue yesterday, and a former national guardsman who was killed after he fatally shot one person at Old Dominion University in Virginia. NPR's domestic extremism correspondent Odette Yousef joins us now to sort through all of this. Hi, Odette.
ODETTE YOUSEF, BYLINE: Hey, Scott.
DETROW: Let's start with what we know about these incidents right now.
YOUSEF: Well, the attempted attack in New York City last weekend allegedly involved two young men from Pennsylvania. According to charging documents, they were there to hurt people who were conducting an Islamophobic protest at the mayor's mansion. They allegedly made explosive devices that contained a material, TATP, that is not readily available. Fortunately, Scott, nobody was seriously hurt, and now they face charges of material support to a foreign terrorist organization, ISIS.
Then yesterday we had two attacks, one at Old Dominion University, where one victim was killed. Investigators have not yet stated a motive, but the suspect, who was found dead, had served time in prison previously after pleading guilty to material support of ISIS.
Separately, there was the attack at a synagogue outside of Detroit. There, the only fatality was the suspect himself. And here, too, investigators are looking into a motive. But what we know is that the individual was a naturalized Lebanese American citizen, and NPR learned that last week, an Israeli strike in Lebanon killed two of his brothers and wounded his parents and sisters-in-law.
DETROW: OK, so this happened at Temple Israel yesterday. There has been more and more concern about rising antisemitism in the U.S. How does this attack fit into the bigger picture?
YOUSEF: Yeah, I spoke about this with Michael Masters. He's the national director of the Secure Community Network, which does threat monitoring and safety training for the Jewish community across North America.
MICHAEL MASTERS: We have said for a number of years that we are in the midst of the most complex and dynamic threat environment facing not just the Jewish community, but the United States in our country's history. It can - this threat environment continues to get worse.
YOUSEF: Now, Masters says, there have been three big inflection points in recent years, Scott. The first was the war in Gaza. We all recall the attention that fall on antisemitism on college campuses. There were attacks on Jews, including a group in Boulder that was holding a vigil for the Israeli hostages taken by Hamas, and also, you'll recall the killing of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, D.C. Then, Masters said, there was a resurgence of threats against Jews this past summer when the U.S. bombed a nuclear facility in Iran. But he says since attacks on Iran began this month, there has been an unprecedented increase. They monitor social media, and Masters says typically they see about 3,000 violent posts directed toward the Jewish community on an average week. That has increased 95% since the conflict began.
DETROW: It seems like there's this sudden uptick in attacks or attempted attacks where ISIS comes up or is involved or is a motivation. What's going on here? What should we understand?
YOUSEF: So again, we still don't know very much about the attack at Old Dominion. But since the U.S. war on Iran began, there has been a surge of calls by ISIS and other militant Jihadist groups overseas to commit these kinds of attacks in the U.S. and Western countries. Now, since ISIS was essentially run out of Syria and Iraq years ago, it has doubled down on a more decentralized model, Scott. So instead of, you know, directing attacks, it's using online platforms to indoctrinate and assist violent actors across the world. Now, we should note that ISIS-inspired attacks account for a small proportion of violent extremist attacks in the U.S. Last year, there were about seven, but even so, one of those was the deadliest terrorist attack of that year. It occurred in New Orleans.
DETROW: As you talk to people and look at all of these facts, are you finding any common threads?
YOUSEF: Yeah, a couple of things. First, across the board, whether we're talking about antisemitic terrorist attacks or ISIS-inspired attacks, there is concern that social media is part of the problem. You know, over the last year, tech companies have greatly pulled back on content moderation, and over that time, ISIS recruitment propaganda and antisemitic content have become more and more present on mainstream social media platforms like Facebook, Tik Tok and Instagram.
DETROW: You're talking about this, and it just seems hard to say one or two or three policies or steps would really make a difference.
YOUSEF: It's really tough. You know, I think every time there's an incident like this, people ask, could law enforcement have stopped it? And this hope just seems less and less possible with these individual actors who may be radicalized by the internet or by the war or by dehumanizing hate speech that's increasingly tolerated in this country.
DETROW: That is NPR's Odette Yousef. Thanks so much.
YOUSEF: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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