Right-wing and left-wing terrorists are conducting a global campaign against the same targets — western democracies, Israel and Jews — and, in some cases, have joined forces in that campaign, according to a study reported today by Maxwell Greenberg, chairman of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. He said Israel was a primary target for both.
Greenberg told the ADL National Commission at its meeting here that terrorist violence in Europe in 1980 and the recent assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II gave new urgency to exposing and taking action against the international terrorist networks.
The ADL study described neo-Nazi and fascist terrorists and propagandists as a “black” network and used the term “red” network for such groups as the West German Baader-Meinhoff Gang, the Italian Red Brigades, the Japanese, and other Soviet-oriented and sponsored groups, like the Palestine Liberation Organization, which the study said, operates with Soviet arms and training.
Greenberg said “the ideological glue that binds the ‘red’ and ‘black’ terrorists is “the shared commitment” to destroy democracy and freedom of expression. He told the meeting of the ADL National Commission that the two terrorist networks have established links through financial support, weapons and joint terrorist training operations.
LINK WITH U.S. NAZIS
According to the study, prepared by Jerome H. Bakst, ADL research department director, the terrorist networks are backed by powerful propaganda machines that attack western societies and disseminate anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic materials.
The study reported that West German’s principal neo-Nazi, Manfred Roeder, has American connections, which include George Dietz of West Virginia, who operates “one of the biggest anti-Jewish and neo-Nazi propaganda factories” in the United States; and the Washington-based Liberty Lobby, headed by Willis Carto, the anti-Semitic propagandist.
One of the goals shared by the “red” and “black” networks, Greenberg said, is the destruction of Israel. He said that to the Soviet Union, “without which the ‘red’ terrorists international and its Arab allies could not function on the scale they do today, Israel is a major obstacle to deeper Soviet penetration of the Middle East.”
(There will be no JTA Daily News Bulletin dated Monday, June 8 because of the Shavuot holiday.)
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
