Last month was a difficult time for the South Florida Jewish community.  On April 29, 2008, vandals defaced a Parkland, Florida synagogue with spray-painted swastikas and statements lauding Hitler.  One week prior to that, another synagogue in nearby North Miami Beach was set on fire.  Anti-Semitism is on the rise in South Florida, and it’s incumbent upon the community to understand what groups have created this atmosphere for the area.

“Here we go again. Another swastika drawn the wrong way. These are definitely idiots that are just playing a prank, or even Jewish kids looking for sympathy. If you asshole out there have to draw the swastika, draw it right. Have some respect.”

The above quote was written by a member of Stormfront, a worldwide white supremacist internet forum based in West Palm Beach, Florida.  It was concerning an incident that took place in Parkland, Florida only two nights before.  A boy being driven to school by his mom discovered three swastikas scrawled on the walls of the synagogue he and his family attend, Chabad of Parkland.  Along with one of the swastikas was the word “HEIL,” and an adjacent STOP sign contained the words “4 Hitler.”

The author of the piece goes by the name “EASTCOAST WARRIOR,” and he/she uses a gun as an icon for his/her posts.

Another Stormfront member, “richyrichard,” whose icon is a Nazi symbol containing an eagle and a swastika, stated the following about the incident, “When someone paints or photographs a porno queen, the media calls it art. When someone paints a swastika, the media calls it vandalism. But now, lets look closer. Who publishes photos of the swastikas all over the national news for everyone to see? Who, then, is the real vandal? Since the story sells, who has the greatest motive to paint the swastika?”

Stormfront was founded in January of 1995 by West Palm resident Don Black, the former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (KKKK).  He succeeded David Duke as leader of the KKK, in 1980.  Today, Black has a radio talk show with Duke, which he hosts at Stormfront.

Being a website based on ‘white power’ advocacy, unabashed racists, including Klansmen, neo-Nazis and skinheads, convene on Stormfront’s forums to curse blacks and others they deem to be ‘non-white.’  There is also a general obsession with anything concerning Jews.  The media, the government, even the Holocaust are all Jewish conspiracies on Stormfront.

Less than 24 hours from the desecration in Parkland, the following was posted on Stormfront by “A8L,” under the title, ‘Imagine our America – Today – Without the Jew’: “IF this horrid plague upon mankind that we know today as the JEW – had been eradicated by their victims – like the black plague of the middle ages – consider the effect on the United States... Today – thanks to the Jews and their ceaseless efforts to stir up divisive racial hatred... we now have a country full of niggers... Jews are MASTERS of creating hatred where there was none. No Jews – no race problems... We cannot undo the horrendous damages inflicted by the Jew filth in the past – BUT we can halt further destruction taking a stand against our REAL MORTAL enemy and destroy the beast before it destroys us totally. Take this country back – or lose it forever! GAME OVER!”

And the day of the incident, April 28th, at 1:20 PM, “tellthetruth357” wrote on Stormfront, under the title, ‘To solve our problems do the unthinkable’: “The problem is we have too many enemies. The Jews have made us and the Arabs enemies. We never had any problem with the Arabs prior to Israel. Mexicans are pouring over our border. The problem is Blacks, Orientals, Mexicans, Arabs and everyone else don’t understand that the Jew is everyone’s enemy.”

Could it be that this was the catalyst that triggered the defiling of the synagogue?  Or possibly it came from an entirely different direction – the radical Muslim community.

Fewer than 20 minutes northeast of Chabad of Parkland is the Islamic Center of Boca Raton (ICBR).  The mosque has had a storied connection to a number of terrorist organizations.

One of ICBR’s former imam’s, Muneer Arafat, admitted under oath that he was a member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).  One of the mosque’s former members, Rafiq Sabir, was convicted, last year, of conspiracy to provide material support to Al-Qaeda.  One of its former directors, Syed Khawer Ahmad, was the creator and webmaster for the official website of Hamas’s charitable and educational apparatus, the Islamic Association (Al-Jamiya Al-Islamia).  And one of its current Directors, Bassem Alhalabi, was a research assistant for imprisoned PIJ leader Sami Al-Arian.

From October of 1999 till September of 2001, ICBR’s website contained a violently anti-Semitic article, entitled ‘Why can’t the Jews and Muslims live together in peace?’  In it, it was stated, “There cannot be harmony between Jews – who are usurpers and aggressors, who have oppressed and persecuted others, and who are known for their treachery and corruption throughout the world, historically and in the present age... In addition to this, the Jews are people of treachery and betrayal; it is not possible to trust them at all... [The ‘Prophet’ Muhammad] said, ‘You will fight the Jews and will prevail over them, so that a rock will say, O Muslim! There is Jew behind me, kill him!’”

On April 22, 2008, during Passover, the Chabad on Wheels synagogue, located in North Miami Beach, was set aflame, a suspected arson attack.

The day of the fire, Stormfront forum member “TaN00Ki,” whose user icon is that of Hitler in an arm outstretched “Seig Heil” stance, declared, “Well jews make themselves enemies everywhere; face the white man’s wrath after all this corruption and sabotage in white nations or go home and face muslim’s anger avenging their own losses. Reap what you sow...”

23 minutes from the Miami Beach Chabad resides the American Muslim Association of North America (AMANA).  AMANA is run by Sofian Abdelaziz Zakkout, the former Vice President of the Hamas-affiliated Heath Resource Center for Palestine (HRCP).

From December of 2002 till September of 2003, AMANA’s website featured an article, next to a picture of the World Trade Center in flames, entitled, ‘The Call for the Unity of Religions – A False and Dangerous Call.’ It stated, “The Christians and Jews want the Muslims to be like them.  That is why they support this deceptive call for ‘unity’... They wish that you reject Faith, as they have rejected (Faith), and thus that you all become equal (like one another)... One of the fundamental beliefs in Islaam is the kufr (unbelief) of the Christians and Jews because they reject the Qur’aan and the message of Muhammad to them... Any Muslim who doubts their kufr is a kaafir [unbeliever] himself.”

As well, from May of 2003 till October of 2006, AMANA had on its website a PowerPoint presentation, which ended with the statement, “Please help us protect our children from the zionist jews.”

On April 6th, weeks before the synagogue attacks, AMANA held its 3rd Annual Festival, what it called a ‘2008 Bazaar & BBQ’ [PDF]. At the event, Zakkout manned a table of books, pamphlets and audio CDs that were being given out to the public.  The authors of these books included: the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna; the founder of Jamaat-e-Islami (the Muslim Brotherhood of Pakistan), Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi; “unindicted co-conspirator” of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Bilal Philips; anti-Christian and anti-Semite, Ahmed Deedat; and the individual in which Islam’s fundamentalist sect Wahhabism was named for, Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab.

Some quotes from the AMANA books include:

• “Muslims’ imitation of the disbelievers. Such imitation is injurious to the collective existence of Muslims... [T]he Prophet [Muhammad] has advised Muslims to shun this kind of imitation.  He said: ‘Oppose the Jews and the Christians.’” (Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, The Question of Dress)
• “[T]he Muslims had to fight the Jews as well as the other enemies of Islam. All the efforts of Rasulullah [‘Prophet’ Muhammad] to live in peace with the Jews failed... Allah says about the Jews in the Quran, ‘Isn’t it the case, every time they (the Jews) make an agreement, some party among them throws it aside. The truth is most of them are without faith.’” (Abid’ullah Ghazi and Tasneema K. Ghazi, Mercy to Mankind: Life of Muhammad Rasulullah)
• “The Zionists know only too well that [if] the Muslims unite, the end of Israel would be just at hand.” (Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, Unity of the Muslim World)

The anti-Semitism spewing forth from these groups could make life very tough for the Jewish community, in Parkland, Miami and elsewhere.  And while this is nothing new for Jews, who have suffered pain derived from hate groups for centuries, it is certainly no excuse for its continuance.

In putting out this information, this author does not suggest that the aforementioned organizations or individuals had any direct involvement in the crimes that were perpetrated against the two South Florida synagogues this month.  Nevertheless, given their close proximity to the houses of worship, one could certainly surmise that the groups have created an environment ripe with the type of hatred and incitement that would lend motivation for such attacks to occur.