March 23, 2017

"Israeli police on Thursday arrested a 19-year-old hacker who they said was the main suspect in a wave of bomb threats against Jewish community centers in the United States..."

"... appearing to crack a case that has sent a chill through the American Jewish community.
The surprising arrest of the Jewish man, who holds dual Israeli and American citizenship, came after a trans-Atlantic investigation with the FBI and other international law enforcement agencies. U.S. Jewish groups welcomed the breakthrough in the case, which had raised concerns of rising anti-Semitism and drawn condemnation from President Donald Trump.
I'm not surprised that/if the threats turn out to be from a person who is not an anti-Semite but someone hoping to create the impression that there is anti-Semitism. I've seen so many "hate crime" stories turn out to be fake that it's my assumption. I guess that's optimism. The assumption is rebuttable, but show me evidence. I'm not going to assume the worst about people. But this crying wolf is bad, because it does cause people like me to resist believing if and when something bad really happens.

32 comments:

Achilles said...

We certainly can't speculate about his motives or his political affiliations.

Jake said...

This should surprise no one.

Yancey Ward said...

Yes, I have basically reached the point where I view any anonymous hate crime/threat to be a false flag operation. The vast majority of them that reach the level of national coverage and are resolved turn out to be exactly that- hoaxes.

buwaya said...

What effect this has on you is not quite as significant as its effect on, for instance, the Facebook crowd. The original report#1 will be repeated but this one, report#2 isn't likely to be, at least within the audience that heard report#1.

So the impression of galloping anti-semitism has been made and will persist, at least within a large minority.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I think there a problem with the word fake. We are asking too much for one word to do.

Faking suggest something less harsh than what this 19 year old did.

Rob said...

I blame Tawana Brawley and, by extension, Al Sharpton.

mockturtle said...

The surprising arrest of the Jewish man

No surprise there. Most of the anti-Islamic 'hate crimes' turn out to be committed by Muslims.

Tarrou said...

The only thing that surprises me is the Israeli angle.

fivewheels said...

"But this crying wolf is bad, because it does cause people like me to resist believing if and when something bad really happens."

No, mostly it's bad because it's (broadly) slanderous against the people who get blamed in the interim, in this case, Trump supporters. Much like the tragedy of the false rape accusation is NOT that it makes people more skeptical of future allegations, as people often will say. It's that someone got victimized right there in the present.

YoungHegelian said...

Hey, maybe the culprit is like Karl Marx or Max Blumenthal, a Jewish anti-Semite.

They're out there.

So, is anyone out there planning on extending an apology to Trump & his supporters for their slanderous accusations of antisemitism?

CWJ said...

We don't have time to wait. We know you haters are out there. You think you're so clever hiding it by not showing any hate or doing the crimes we all know you want to do.

Well, we're on to you. So here's a hate crime to help you along. So there!


MSM response: Why thank you. You are doing the work of the anointed.

fivewheels said...

The reason there are so many manufactured hate crimes is that there is plenty of upside to making one up, and little to no downside. You will get media attention. The media will trumpet your point of view, which is that your political opponents are hateful, dangerous, horrible people. You might get big crowd-funding sympathy bucks or, in the last administration, a trip to the White House and preferential admission to MIT.

Downside if eventually exposed? Maybe a slap on the wrist, probably not even that.

Virgil Hilts said...

I remember (just hours after the MSM viciously attacked Trump for suggesting false-flags) when Juan Thompson was arrested. NY Times said something really weasel-like to effect that although the guy did a bunch of the fake threats there was no evidence that he was responsible for "most" of them. Well when you add that guy with this little punk, you may have actually solved a majority of them.
So will the media retract their editorials attacking DT for suggesting false flag?

YoungHegelian said...

Nimrod Vax, a co-founder of the U.S.-Israeli cybersecurity firm BigID,

Nimrod Vax. That is one helluva name, isn't it?

Che Dolf said...

Althouse - But this crying wolf is bad, because it does cause people like me to resist believing if and when something bad really happens.

It's bad because it's used as a weapon to silence and destroy political opposition. Your concern isn't nearly as important.

Michael K said...

Could someone make a list of "hate crimes" that are NOT hoaxes ?

A short list, I believe.

exhelodrvr1 said...

The left is f-ing disgusting, from the head down to the shoes.

Gahrie said...

I've seen so many "hate crime" stories turn out to be fake that it's my assumption. .... I'm not going to assume the worst about people.

I don't know...assuming someone is lying about a hate crime seems to me to be worse than assuming someone actually committed a hate crime, both because the hoax is itself a form of hate crime and because the hoax is an attempt to use victimization status as a political weapon.

Don't get me wrong...i agree with you that most hate crimes today are hoaxes.....

buwaya said...

Nimrod Vax

A name worth stealing for fiction. But it would be considered too unbelievable unless you intended your work to be a bit cartoony.
Reality is way more fun than fiction isn't it?

mockturtle said...

Hey, maybe the culprit is like Karl Marx or Max Blumenthal, a Jewish anti-Semite.

And Bernie Sanders.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

mockturtle said...
And Bernie Sanders.


That will be news to all the jews who voted for him.

Gahrie said...

That will be news to all the jews who voted for him.

Sadly, you are probably correct. That's the problem.

Bill said...

It doesn't matter. Some antisemitic white supremacist, somewhere, approved of the bomb threats.

Big Mike said...

@Gahrie, I agree with you. ARM's right, but for the wrong reason.

mockturtle said...

Yes, it has long been a mystery why most Jews [all but Orthodox] vote Democratic faithfully, unquestioningly and stupidly. Though Sanders is a 'Jew', he is an atheist and a Socialist. He has no regard for Israel or her people.

traditionalguy said...

Obama spent millions of our dollars setting up a political gang in Israel to hamstring Bibi. I bet this Jew is one of those operatives now of Soro's payroll to create a false flag of Trump antisemitism. Basic psyops.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Whoever would do such a thing is as low a loser as they come.

And we've seen this before.

It's ugly every time.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Yes, it has long been a mystery why most Jews [all but Orthodox] vote Democratic faithfully, unquestioningly and stupidly. Though Sanders is a 'Jew', he is an atheist and a Socialist. He has no regard for Israel or her people.

You've got no regard for human intelligence. Neither he nor anyone has any greater obligation to go along with the Bibi Netanyahu agenda than you did with the Obama agenda. Were you called anti-American for that? No. Only right-wingers are scuzzy enough to make not supporting a country's leader or his misguided policies a question of patriotism. They can't separate supporting a country from supporting its policies or leadership. They need to all go live together in a place where subservient yes-men and yes-women have a tyrant they can feel awed by.

Israel was built on socialism. For that matter, so was their whole bible thing. And monotheism is certainly a few steps closer to atheism than paganism was. Or even a trinity is.

Go take a trip to Israel and go slobber over all their people. Yes they're warm and appreciate that in others. But a bit less impressed with sycophancy than you are.

And they fucking hate the black hat/black suit orthodox set - who are still exempted from military service and instead paid subsidies to read thousand year old texts all day long and have babies. The ultimate welfare queens.

Alex said...

No doubt this will be used as a fig leaf for ongoing antisemitism.

Jon Ericson said...

Never change, Gumby Bolshy.

Static Ping said...

Alex, given that a large chunk of antisemitism comes from the Left, even if these hoaxes had been by Trump supporters it was still being used as a fig leaf.

Static Ping said...

Ann, when it comes to hate crimes that the media fixates on, they have a surprisingly high hit percentage on false flag operations, agendaless random nut jobs, and general malpractice that reverses the victim and perpetrator. Your skepticism is wise. If you are worried that you won't see the wolf coming when the alarm is real, be well assured that the media will not see the wolf coming regardless and most like will celebrate all the lovely teeth it has.