7 reported dead in apparent Vienna terror attack also said to target synagogue
An ongoing shooting attack was underway at several sites Monday evening in central Vienna, including in the area of a synagogue and the offices of the Jewish community, killing at least seven people, Austrian media reported, prompting a large-scale police operation.
Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said the incidents appeared to be a terror attack with multiple perpetrators.
The Kurier newspaper said at least one of the fatalities was a police officer. It added there were four people seriously injured in the series of attacks.
There were multiple gunmen, some of them still at large, according to messages sent to members of the local Jewish community.
Austrian news agency APA quoted the country’s Interior Ministry as saying that one attacker has been killed and at least one other could be on the run.
Reports said there was a hostage situation in the city’s seventh district. In addition, reports said there had been an explosion, with one of the assailants possibly blowing himself up.
Oskar Deutsch, the head of the Jewish community in Vienna, said the shooting took place in the street where the city’s main synagogue is located, in the first district, but that it wasn’t clear whether the house of worship had been targeted. He said there were no casualties among the Jewish community.
Deutsch noted that the synagogue and the community offices were closed at the time of the shooting, and asked all community members to stay away from the area.
#BREAKING: Active shooting near synagogue in Vienna, Austria. Casualties reported.
— Hananya Naftali (@HananyaNaftali) November 2, 2020
Please pray! pic.twitter.com/UVBMSuxcD0
Anti-Semitism in America
American Jews have been reminded that the world’s oldest hatred almost never totally disappears, even in places where Jews are largely assimilated and communal life feels settled. During Donald Trump’s presidency, lunatics of various ideological stripes have launched deadly assaults on synagogues, kosher grocery stores, and Hanukkah parties, while a wave of dozens of physical attacks on Jews in New York City appeared to have no overt political motive. Multiple left-wing members of Congress support the BDS movement; on the right, the president has made uneasily frequent—though not outwardly hostile—mentions of Jewish money and political power and been less outwardly condemnatory of white supremacy than the overwhelming majority of American Jews would have liked. The alleged anti-Semitism of campus Israel haters, identitarian right wingers, mentally disturbed passersby, and actual members of the federal government jostle for room within a frayed American Jewish psyche.US Anti-Semitism Special Envoy Elan Carr Speaks to i24NEWS
Last year, the American Jewish Committee commissioned a poll aimed at understanding how American Jews perceived these various threats against them. This year it repeated the exercise, while also polling the general public on its views on American anti-Semitism. The results are worth examining.
Jews overwhelmingly believe that America is becoming a more anti-Semitic and physically dangerous place for them to live, work, and study: 82% responded that anti-Semitism has increased over the past five years. Some 27% reported that Jewish institutions with which they affiliated had “been the targets of anti-Semitism” since the October 2018 massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh; 37% reported that they had “taken steps to conceal their Jewishness in public” since that attack. Meanwhile, 43% of Jews between the ages of 18 and 29 had “experienced anti-Semitism on a college campus over the past five years.”
American Jews are center-left in political orientation—the latest polling suggests that over 70% of them will vote for Joe Biden next week. Thus, the AJC’s findings about the perceived bipartisan nature of anti-Jewish hate reflects a certain fatalism, while also breaking down along lines of party affiliation: While 69% of respondents agreed that the Republican Party holds at least some anti-Semitic views, a not-insignificant 37% said the same about the Democrats.
One of the poll’s relative surprises is that BDS, which is almost exclusively a left-wing phenomenon, and which has vocal fans among growing Democratic Party constituencies, is viewed as either being anti-Semitic or having anti-Semitic supporters among a whopping 80% of Jewish respondents. While the statement “Israel has no right to exist” has adherents on both extremes of the political spectrum, it is mostly heard in left-wing quarters these days; 85% of Jewish respondents agreed it was anti-Semitic.
Settler leader, Palestinian ex-terrorist urge Americans to vote for TrumpHere's the link to the youtube of the panel I moderated yesterday for @HabithonistimEn in English about the future of the (irrelevant) Palestinian Authority.https://t.co/vXcfH0HjBY
— Caroline Glick (@CarolineGlick) November 2, 2020
A hardline settler leader and a Palestinian former terrorist have released a joint video calling on Americans to vote for Donald Trump in the US presidential elections. The clip, posted online Sunday, features Samaria Regional Council chief Yossi Dagan alongside Mohammed Massad, who served seven years in an Israeli prison for attacks committed during the First Intifada in the late 1980s before becoming a peace activist and a fierce critic of the Palestinian Authority. “During the Obama-Biden administration, our region was filled with chaos,” Dagan says in the video. “Two hundred and four citizens of Israel were murdered as a result of terrorist activities.” “The administration of US President Donald Trump stopped the support for the Palestinian leadership and scaled down the severity of the hostilities,” says Massad. “For the sake of our lives, for the sake of our future, vote for President Trump,” both men conclude. Massad changed his views dramatically after serving a prison term for his terror activities as part of the Fatah armed wing, and wrote a book arguing that suicide attacks go against the Quran. (h/t jzaik)
Thanks to @realDonaldTrump, there has been far less bloodshed...listen to this unlikely pair. pic.twitter.com/UPsK8tj0GP
— Jeff Ballabon (@ballabon) November 2, 2020