Repeating the same vile acts of anti-Semitism seen since the time of the Romans, 46-year-old bigot Robert Bowers opened fire with an AK-47 and two semi-automatics on worshippers, killing 11, injuring six at 10:00 AM Oct. 27 in Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue. Pttsburgh’s swat team arrived at the scene within minutes, taking down Bowers but not before four officers suffered injuries, one critical. FBI officials combed through Bowers computer finding anti-Semitic posts on the alt-right alternative to Twitter called Gab, permitting vile racist and anti-Semitic hate speech. Twitter routinely suspends accounts of anyone using the Website to spew racist or religious hate. Had the FBI, state or local law enforcement agencies monitored Gab’s hate speech, they might intercept Bowers’ murderous rampage before he went on his shot up the synagogue..
Advocates of tougher gun control laws wouldn’t have prevented Bowers from buying his weapons lawfully. No gun legislation would have stopped Bowers from his rampage, without monitoring his Internet activity and moving in before morphing into a mass killing. Only in America do citizens have the right to bear arms, circulating more weapons than the 340 million population. Bowers’ slaughter was reminiscent of 21-year-old Dylann Roof’s June 17, 2015 slaughter at Charleston’s First AME Church, killing nine, injuring one. Roof was sentenced to death Jan. 11, 2017. While there’s little doubt Bowers will meet the same fate, the real question is how to intercept violent episodes before it results in entirely unnecessary carnage. Bowers’ Internet posts on Gab clearly show that his racist and anti-Semitic hate had reached the boiling point.
World leaders responded in sympathy and horror to the worst anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history. Most anti-Semites and racists don’t commit mass murder but when you have mentally ill anti-Semites and racists anything can happen. Federal officials haven’t yet found a way to predict and control violent behavior to save lives from lunatic time-bombs ready to go off. “The entire people of Israel grieve with the families of the dead,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose country faces almost daily anti-Semitic terror attacks. Israel was founded in the ash-heap of WW II, where Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich killed 6 million Jews, trying but failing with his “Final Solution” to wipe out European Jews. No one understands or fights global anti-Semitism more than Netanyahu and Israel. Jews always found as safe haven in the U.S. since Colonial days.
Today’s Germany still atones for the atrocities committed by the Nazis against Jews and other minority groups. No time in human history, including the 1492 Spanish Inquisition and all the historical attacks on Jews since biblical times, has any country tried to massacre one group more than Hitler’s Germany. Today’s German leaders, led by 64-year-old Angela Merkel, bear an onerous burden for Germany’s sordid past. Ever generation of Germans since the end of WW II have carried the burden of committing the worst genocide in human history. Merkel’s strong commitment to the European Union hopes to end any residual anti-Semitic hatred that lurks beneath the surface in Germany. With the rise of the Alternative for German party [AfD], attracting past anti-Semitic racists in Germany, Merkel has redoubled efforts to fight racism and religious intolerance.
Merkel sent her condolences to President Donald Trump and the American people. “My sympathies are for the families; I wish for strength and recovery for the victims. We all must stand resolutely against anti-Semitism—everywhere,” said Merkel through her spokesman Steffen Seibert. Other world leaders expressed similar horror for the Jewish temple slaughter in Pittsburgh. President Trump’s daughter, senior adviser Ivanka Trump said it best for the White House. “America is stronger than the acts of a depraved bigot and anti-Semite. All good Americans stand with the Jewish people to oppose acts of terror and share the horror, disgust and outrage the massacre in Pittsburgh. We must unite against hate and evil. God bless those affected,” said Ivanka, sharing the nation and world’s collective outrage. White House officials can’t do enough to assuage the victim’s grief.
However long it takes the nation to recover from Pittsburhg’s horror, federal authorities must take a closer look at the so-called “dark Web” where the most deranged in society slip through the cracks to post the most vile hate imaginable. Since there’s little chance of changing the Second Amendment, the nation’s best minds in law enforcement and intelligence must put their heads together to find better ways to monitor lunatics spewing hate on social media. Whether Bowers could have been stopped is anyone’s guess. But better monitoring of Internet hate sites might have given probable cause to monitor his actions. If the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act {FISA] can create a court to wiretap saboteurs, the government can create a federal act to monitor racists, anti-Semites and other violent criminals planning mass murder and other acts of terror.
