The State Department said Wednesday in its annual report on terrorism that "dangerous terrorist threats persisted" throughout 2019 even as the Islamic State group suffered losses in Iraq and Syria, and the United States imposed sanctions and took other steps against Iran and its proxies in the Middle East.

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The report cited a surge in extremist groups affiliating themselves with IS in Africa and Southeast Asia and said Iran continued to foment terrorism. In addition, it noted a rise in deadly racially motivated attacks claimed by or attributed to white supremacists as well as the threat from the remnants of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.

Despite losing territory and its leader, IS "adapted to continue the fight from its affiliates across the globe and by inspiring followers to commit attacks," the report said. "The Iranian regime and its proxies continued to plot and commit terrorist attacks on a global scale."

The report said Iran, IS, and al-Qaida endured serious setbacks in 2019. Those included the killings of several top leaders and the imposition of tough penalties against Iran's Revolutionary Guard, Lebanon's Hezbollah terrorist organization, and supporters and financiers of both.

Apart from extremist Islamic groups, the report said attacks committed by white nationalists are of particular concern.

"The threat posed by racially or ethnically motivated terrorism, particularly white supremacist terrorism, remains a serious challenge for the global community," it said. The report noted numerous such attacks in 2019, including in New Zealand, Germany, and the United States.

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Wesley Gilreath, 29, told investigators that he "wanted the white race to win at life." Gilreath was originally arrested after hundreds of photos and video of child pornography was found on his phone, which he left on a public bus in Boulder in May.

According to police records, workers who attempted to find information about the phone's owner were startled to find thousands of pictures and videos of child pornography on the device, they then reached out to Boulder police, who in turn alerted the FBI.

A court order was made to confiscate his iPhone, which FBI agents discovered contained several disturbing web searches, among them a list of synagogues in Boulder, Denver and elsewhere in Colorado, as well as a list of mosques and Islamic schools in the Denver area, Jewish conspiracy theories, and violent shooters.

FBI and police records also revealed that Gilreath was in possession of many documents and paraphernalia on white supremacy.

In a lead-up to his planned attacks, Gilreath tried to purchase a gun on May 24 from a local firearm store in Boulder, but was denied due to a background check which uncovered that he had mental health issues. It is unclear how this came to light, but a previous report showed that a man who may have been his father alerted federal authorities and prevented him from purchasing a gun in Colorado or in other states.

Gilreath is currently in federal custody on account of child pornography charges.

Last Tuesday, US Magistrate Judge Scott Varholak said that US Magistrate Judge Scott Varholak said that Gilreath was a danger to society and will remain in detention pending his trial.

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One suspect is in custody after the shooting Saturday at the Al-Noor Islamic Center in the Oslo suburb of Baerum. Police say they believe no one else was involved.

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Oslo police official Rune Skjold told a news conference Sunday that the suspect, a man in his 20s, has been found to hold extreme right-wing views and animosity toward immigrants.

After the shooting, police went to his residence and said they found his 17-year-old sister dead. Police said the man is a suspect in that death.

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Tlaib argued that Palestinians were not responsible for terrorism or vitriol, even as she has lambasted the president's use of words and called Israel a white-supremacist nation.

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"Comparing Palestinian human rights advocates to terrorist white nationalists is fundamentally a lie. Palestinians want equality, human dignity & to stop the imprisonment of children," she tweeted. "White supremacy is calling for the *domination* of one race w/ the use of violence."

Comparing Palestinian human rights advocates to terrorist white nationalists is fundamentally a lie. Palestinians want equality, human dignity & to stop the imprisonment of children .

White supremacy is calling for the *domination* of one race w/ the use of violence. https://t.co/vSPTxIZBTq pic.twitter.com/zHQbn1hmEr

— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) August 5, 2019

Tlaib's comments were in response to Tapper saying on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday program that "either tone matters or it doesn't."

"You hear conservatives all the time rightly so, in my opinion, talk about the tone set by people in the Arab world. Palestinian leaders talk about … and the way they talk about Israelis, justifying in the same way you're doing," Tapper said. "No direct link necessarily between what the leader says and the violence against some important Israeli girl in a pizzeria," apparently a reference to the 2001 bombing at a Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem, where 15 civilians, including a pregnant woman, were killed.

"The idea you're validating hatred and yet … you can't compare the ideology of Hamas with anything else," continued Tapper. "But at the same time, either tone matters or it doesn't."

Patrick Crusius, 21, has been charged with opening fire in a crowded Walmart in the Texas border town of El Paso on Saturday, killing 22 people and wounding dozens more. Crusius published a manifesto prior to the attack decrying the "Hispanic invasion of Texas."

The El Paso attack was followed just hours later by another mass shooting outside a bar in Dayton, Ohio. Police identified the shooter as 24-year-old Connor Betts. Nine people were killed, including the gunman's sister, and 26 wounded in that attack before the shooter was killed by police. His motive is still unclear.

On Monday, Trump condemned the hatred behind the El Paso shooting.

"In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy," he said, adding that "the perils of the internet and social media cannot be ignored, and they will not be ignored."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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The threat to freedom in the United States is twofold, said Carmon.

On the one hand is the jihadi threat, which manifests in terrorist attacks but is rooted in the ideological incitement of preachers in mosques. On the other hand are white supremacists, neo-Nazis, fascists and others who frequently pose a mortal threat to Jews and people of color. Like the jihadists, the white supremacists also target the LGBTQ community, said Carmon.

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"This deadly two-pronged attack is engendering a situation where dignified and safe Jewish communal life in America is almost impossible," said Carmon.

Monitoring U.S. imams

During the past year-and-a-half, he explained, MEMRI concentrated on monitoring sermons by imams across the United States. The results from a random sample of over 100 imams, he said, were shocking. The sermons were laced with incitement to kill Jews, support for global jihad and hard-core misogyny. A few imams, he said, preached tolerance and coexistence, but they were a small minority.

This replicated the organization's findings in Europe, he added, where a very few called for tolerance and coexistence, and a sizable majority preached anti-Christian and anti-Jewish hate propaganda. Sometimes, he said, the very same preachers whose message in the mosques was incitement, hate and even advocacy for violence were also engaged in interfaith activities.

"Since in Europe not only actions but hate speech is criminalized, the authorities took action against them based on MEMRI's monitoring," he said, but it was not true for US Jewish organizations he tried to warn.

"I took these results to the leadership of several US Jewish organizations to warn about the emerging threat and encourage them to protest in various ways," he said. "I was stunned to realize that the leaders of the Jewish community I spoke with are totally afraid to deal with the challenge in a proactive, comprehensive way."

They fear for their own personal safety, he said, and also fear that openly challenging radical Islamists would expose them to accusations of Islamophobia.

"So while Islamist preachers are free to call for killing Jews, with complete immunity, it is Islamophobic to counter them," he said.

And as if that weren't enough, he added, "I was stunned even more to hear the argument that in order to be heard regarding the jihadist threat we had 'to balance' our exposure of radical Islam by monitoring and exposing the white supremacists and neo-Nazis as well.

"After overcoming my shock at this approach – it was days after the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting – we began monitoring this dark world of hatred, too. We were unfamiliar with this phenomenon at the beginning, but we soon realized that the methodology that we used to monitor the jihadis was fully applicable to the study of the white supremacist threat.

"What we discovered was a totally parallel world of incitement to violence, with deep-rooted ideology, with heroes and Red Alert days (such as the "Day of the Rope" on Aug. 1, when 'betrayers of the race' are to be hanged)."

Monitoring white supremacists on social media

Although ideology and actions are inextricably intertwined, "Americans generally imagine that a wall separates the two," said Carmon, adding that "Europe, which experienced the World War II, knows better and criminalizes Nazi, racist, xenophobic speech, as well as Holocaust denial."

"Within 10 days," he said, "we exposed specific threats to kill a Jewish journalist working for Buzzfeed and a candidate for the Seattle municipal council. We also found a white supremacist taking covert photos of Orthodox Jews in supermarkets in the hope, as he posted online, of 'wiping the blood from the blade of his ax.'"

"We also found macabre intersectionality when the openly anti-Semitic David Duke praised Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), recognizing their kindred anti-Semitism," said Carmon.

Carmon rejects the term "lone wolf" both for jihadists and white supremacists. Like wolves in nature, he said, terrorists, whether of the jihadist or white-supremacist varieties, live and work in packs – online packs in the terrorists' case.

"There are major platforms catering to white supremacists, such as GAB, where the Pittsburgh shooter was active, and 8Chan, which pretends to be a regular site but in reality is a full-blown racist site inciting violence," said Carmon.

"Lately, [8Chan users] identified MEMRI as a threat and doxed us [revealed private or identifying information] in an attempt to intimidate our personnel. Little do they understand – this only encourages us to redouble our efforts."

"In a major report that MEMRI published two months ago when we began this project," said Carmon, "we identified 28 major white supremacist platforms and eight individuals. Unfortunately, this is merely the tip of the iceberg."

According to a report by The New York Times in November last year, US law enforcement was unprepared for the threat coming from white supremacists. According to Carmon, this is one of the areas where he feels MEMRI has a role to play.

"We see our mission as providing [US law enforcement agencies] with research assistance on both the jihadi and white supremacist fronts," said Carmon, through "following social media professionally."

Are social-media companies finally taking action?

Since the New Zealand mosque shootings in March, said Carmon, several Western countries and social-media companies have been exploring new ways to purge the web of incitement. However, he said, "all of this should have been done years ago, and not only after blood was spilled and lives lost."

Initially, he said, the social-media companies vigorously resisted efforts to crack down on incitement.

"All the social-media companies previously marshaled a series of false argument to say that it couldn't be done –and suddenly, everything is possible," he said.

Many people have never heard of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, said Carmon, which under Section 230 provides immunity for social-media companies. But now, he said, that blanket immunity is under threat.

"Only last year was this legal abomination partially breached, in the form of the Fighting Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA). All other criminal content remained for the Internet companies to exploit with impunity and immunity," he said.

The Internet companies fought FOSTA to preserve their right to profit from pornography and pedophilia, said Carmon. They are content, he said, "to reap a bonanza from ad revenues on Holocaust denial, apologetics for Hitler, beheadings, racial incitement and jihad recruitment."

"For years, the Internet companies hid behind the ACLU and other useful idiots who actually bought the story that the Internet companies' immunity was designed to protect dissidents, not corporate dividends. However, more traffic online translates into larger advertising revenue for companies," said Carmon.

Governments and legislatures are beginning to lose their infatuation with the Internet companies, he said, but some of the old reverence remains.

"When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently met with French President Emmanuel Macron, it seemed that the president of the Sovereign Republic of Facebook was addressing his colleague, the president of la République Française, as an equal," noted Carmon.

Instead of going to the root of the problem and removing the media companies' immunity, "Macron settled for a formula under which French regulators would be free to enter Facebook's corporate inner sanctum in Dublin and Silicon Valley and France would receive a tip of $5 billion a year. The French president fails to realize that Facebook is only making him an accomplice to all the criminal content," accused Carmon.

The only effective policy, he concluded, is to remove the Internet companies' immunity shield, leveling the playing field with print and broadcast media.

This article is reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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The company said in a statement that it will block "videos alleging that a group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion. It's our responsibility to protect that and prevent our platform from being used to incite hatred, harassment, discrimination and violence."

YouTube further stated, "Our systems are also getting smarter about what types of videos should get this treatment, and we'll be able to apply it to even more borderline videos moving forward."

This article is reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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The rare joint session in the chambers of the state's House of Representatives was attended by nearly two dozen family members of victims of the Oct. 27 attack on the three congregations holding services that day. Among those in attendance was Andrea Wedner, whose 97-year-old mother was killed and who was herself was among seven people wounded.

"This moment of American history and this ravaging Sabbath massacre in my hometown tells us that all is not well in our republic," said Rabbi Cheryl Klein, whose Dor Hadash congregation had a member killed and another wounded.

"Hate is emboldened and white supremacists are somehow mainstreamed. This diseased American moment was anti-Semitism in our face. It is ugly, unacceptable and its condemnation needs to be met with tireless strength."

"We pray that we are not guilty of inaction. We pray that we are not guilty of complacency. We pray that we are not guilty of allowing ourselves to be paralyzed by politics," Klein said.

The service was held a day after the Pittsburgh mayor signed new gun control measures that were introduced weeks after the attack. The legislation was immediately challenged in court by gun rights advocates who argued municipalities may not impose firearms regulations that go beyond what state law allows.

Klein, who was out of town the day of the attack told the joint session gun violence kills tens of thousands of Americans annually and said she prayed that lawmakers will find the courage to seek a path forward.

"The assault on these three congregations was an act of unimaginable evil," said state Rep. Dan Frankel, whose district includes the Tree of Life building where the massacre occurred. "But it has been met with unfathomable bravery and love within our community and far beyond it. Literally hundreds of people acted heroically, starting within seconds of the first gunshot."

Rabbi Jonathan Perlman of the New Light Congregation gave the opening prayer. Perlman, who was in the synagogue during the massacre, asked that God "grant us peace, your most precious gift."

Truck driver Robert Bowers, 46, of Baldwin, Pennsylvania, has pleaded not guilty to carrying out the attack, during which authorities say he expressed hatred of Jews. The charges he faces could result in the death penalty, though his lawyer said last month she hopes the case will be resolved without a trial.

On Wednesday, lawmakers passed identical resolutions that highlighted the history of the Jewish community in Pittsburgh and remembered the victims individually. The resolutions established April 10 as Stronger Than Hate Day in Pennsylvania.

"In the painful aftermath of the attack, the singular phrase that arose from the heartbroken city of Pittsburgh became 'Stronger Than Hate,'" the resolutions said. "The General Assembly thanks the first responders, rabbis, staff, lay leadership and hundreds of members of these synagogues who helped their family and friends."

Frankel spoke about the attack on the House floor in November and wanted to give mourners some time before putting together a more formal legislative memorial.

The only previous time the state's House and Senate met together in response to a tragedy was after Sept. 11, officials said.

State House Republican Leader Bryan Cutler spoke of the 2006 shooting at an Amish school near his home in Lancaster County that killed five girls and wounded five others.

"Those who choose to commit horrendous acts like this of terror and violence can never achieve their ultimate goal, which is the triumph of hate," Cutler said.

Gov. Tom Wolf, who also attended, said the shooting continues to haunt him and his wife, Frances Wolf.

"But we continue to be inspired by the ways in which the people of Pittsburgh came and stood together in the face of hatred and violence," Wolf said. "We owe a debt of gratitude to all those who chose love over hate."

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