US extremists conflicted over war on terror

"Right-wing extremist 'patriots' opposed the USA Patriot Act, and they surely oppose this," he continues. "They think they know who the 'real' targets would be."

Will antigovernment and millenialist types see the new reach of federal intelligence as yet more proof of conspiracies?

"It's already happening, but should really take off in the next week or so," says Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates, an organization in Somerville, Mass., studying right-wing and paramilitary movements.

"Take a look at apocalyptic Christians ..., patriots such as the John Birch Society, anti-Semitic conspiracists blaming it all on Mossad [Israel's intelligence agency] and the Jews, neo-Nazis who combine anti-Semitism with revolutionary-right goals," says Berlet.

Extreme anti-Semitism – along with the view that people of color are "subhuman" or "mud people" – is the ideological basis of such groups as the Aryan Nations and other adherents of Christian Identity. But it's not just extremist militias, hate groups, and neo-Nazi skinheads who are influenced by such prejudice.

A poll reported last week by the New York-based Anti-Defamation League found an increase in anti-Semitism among Americans over a similar survey four years ago. According to the report, 17 percent hold "strongly anti-Semitic" views; another 35 percent are "not completely prejudice-free in their attitudes toward Jews."

The war on terrorism, and in particular its connection to a US foreign policy that most Americans in the survey see as favoring Israel, could well be tied to this increasing anti-Semitism.

"For the first time," the ADL reports, "negative attitudes toward Israel and concern that American Jews have too much influence over US Middle East policy are helping to foster anti-Semitic beliefs."

"Anti-Israel sentiments are used in this country to fuel, legitimize, and rationalize anti-Semitism," says Abraham Foxman, the ADL's national director.

Observers see this attitude (particularly among antigovernment radicals) brought into sharper focus by recent events in New York City.

There, an organization called the Jewish Defense Group announced that it would send out armed patrols to guard against threatened terrorist attacks on American Jews.

Rabbi Daniel Lapin, president of a Seattle-based group called Toward Tradition (which advocates "practical Torah solutions to modern American problems"), last week said, "Jews around the country [should] give serious thought to the issue of free access to firearms...."

There is irony in one aspect of this development: American Jews arming themselves now share a strong interest with antigovernment radicals opposed to the "Zionist-Occupied Government": the right to keep and bear arms.

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