Wikileaked CIA Memo Warns of American Jewish Extremists Exporting Terror Abroad
A CIA memo released by Wikileaks on Wednesday looks at America's long tradition of exporting violent extremism abroad, and its implications for U.S. foreign policy.
Wikileaked CIA Memo Warns of American Jewish Extremists Exporting Terror Abroad
By Joshua Holland
Alternet
August 26, 2010
The United States has a long and rich history of exporting terrorism abroad, according to a CIA memo released by Wikileaks on Wednesday. After noting several incidents in which American Muslims launched much-discussed attacks abroad, the analysts warned, “less attention has been paid to homegrown terrorism… exported overseas” by non-Muslim groups.
The February 5 memo, marked “secret/ noforn” (the intelligence community’s designation for "not for release to foreign nationals"), was penned by the CIA’s “Red Cell,” a group tasked with “taking a pronounced ‘out-of-the-box’ approach” in order to “offer an alternative viewpoint on the full range of analytic issues.”
“Contrary to common belief,” noted the anonymous authors, “the American export of terrorism or terrorists is not a recent phenomenon, nor has it been associated only with Islamic radicals or people of Middle Eastern, African or South Asian ethnic origin.” According to the analysts, Jewish extremists “have supported and even engaged in violent acts against perceived enemies of Israel,” and “some Irish-Americans have long provided financial and material support for violent efforts to compel the United Kingdom to relinquish control of Northern Ireland.”
The report highlighted the consequences of American violence abroad. In 1994, Baruch Goldstein, an American Jewish doctor from New York, “emigrated to Israel, joined the extremist group Kach, and killed 29 Palestinians during their prayers in the mosque at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron.” The deadly attack “helped to trigger a wave of bus bombings by HAMAS in early 1995.” Kach was founded by Meier Kahane, an American Israeli rabbi best described as a “radical cleric.”
