A trio of U.S. officials Tuesday warned of spillover effects from the war between Israel and Hamas, noting a jump in hate crimes and the potential for U.S.-based terror attacks.
The conflict has inspired both antisemitic and Islamophobic attacks, the officials said, with FBI Director Christopher Wray saying that American Jews face an “outrageous distinction of being uniquely targeted” by numerous extremist groups.
The testimony during an annual hearing to evaluate threats to the homeland shows the extent the conflict has already shifted the U.S. landscape.
Israel-Hamas war, and the potential for U.S. impacts
The Oct. 7 attack launched by Hamas in Israel is likely to be motivational for terrorist groups across the globe, the officials warned.
“The actions of Hamas and its allies will serve as an inspiration the likes of which we haven’t seen since ISIS launched its so-called caliphate years ago,” Wray said.
“We also cannot — and do not — discount the possibility that Hamas or another foreign terrorist organization may exploit the current conflict to conduct attacks here on our own soil,” he added, pointing to the potential for actions from groups such as Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group with links to Iran.
“We’re keeping a close eye on what impact recent events may have on those groups’ intentions here in the United States, and how those intentions might evolve,” Wray said.
Christine Abizaid, director of the National Counterterrorism Center Office, said the attack came as the intelligence community was otherwise tracking a reduced overall threat from terrorist actors in the Middle East.
“We have seen reactions from terrorists and violent extremists across the ideological spectrum, who are exploiting the renewed salience of the Israeli Palestinian issue for their own causes. Often threatening attacks against particularly U.S., Israeli and Jewish interests worldwide,” she said.
“How this conflict unfolds in the coming days, weeks and months, and the degree to which it helps renew otherwise declining terrorist actors across the globe will require careful monitoring.”
Uptick in antisemitism and Islamophobia
In the weeks since the war broke out, both Jewish and Islamic groups have tracked a surge in incidents targeting their community.
The Anti-Defamation League documented 312 antisemitic incidents since the breakout of the conflict, a 388 percent spike over the same period last year. The Council on American-Islamic Relations received reports of 774 “biased incidents” from its members, a jump from an average of 224 reports for a 16-day period last year.
Wray said there is a heightened risk of groups or lone actors “using the conflict as an excuse or justification — as horrendous and misguided as that would be — to conduct attacks here against Jewish Americans, Muslim Americans, Arab Americans, etc.”
It’s a dynamic that has shifted an extremism landscape where American Jews already face threats from a number of groups, including those aligned with shite supremacists.
“The reality is that the Jewish community is uniquely targeted by pretty much every terrorist organization across the spectrum. And when you look at a group that makes up 2.4 percent, roughly, of the American population, it should be jarring to everyone that that same population accounts for something like 60 percent of all religious based hate crimes, and so they need our help,” Wray said.
“They’re getting it from racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists, ISIS-inspired violent extremists, [and] foreign terrorist organizations,” he added.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas pointed to the threats as the latest in an ever-evolving threat landscape.
“The threats are very different today than they were a number of years ago. They are very different today than they were three weeks ago,” he said.
Warrantless spy powers
The risk of attacks tied to the Hamas-Israel war were also cited by Mayorkas and Wray as they pushed for Congress to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
The law, which is slated to expire at the end of the year, allows the intelligence community to spy on foreigners located abroad without a warrant. But critics say U.S. citizens communicating with those figures are too often swept up in the searches, a factor they see as a backdoor to warrantless surveillance.
“Expiration would leave our country vulnerable to attacks supported by American citizens, and it would cripple our ability to identify and secure American citizens who are the targets of such attacks,” Mayorkas said.
“Renewing each of these four authorities is common-sense, bipartisan, and critical to our national security. This is not a moment to let our country’s guard down.”
Wray also seemed to push back on some of the proposed reforms, including one floated by an intelligence advisory board that would force the intelligence community to get judicial blessing before reviewing intelligence that swept up U.S. sources.
“It would be absolutely devastating if the next time an adversary like Iran or China launches a major cyber attack, we don’t see it coming because 702, one of our most important tools, was allowed to lapse,” Wray said.
“Or with everything going on in the world, imagine if a foreign terrorist overseas directs an operative to carry out an attack in our own backyard, but we’re not able to disrupt it because the FBI’s authorities have been so watered down.”
Border highlights focus on immigration and fentanyl
None of the experts who appeared before the committee identified immigration as a national security threat, instead discussing efforts to curb fentanyl.
But many lawmakers questioned Mayorkas about the state of the border, with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) displaying recent border encounters in questioning Mayorkas.
“I can’t quite honestly think of a greater threat to America than what is represented by this chart,” Johnson said.
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) also blasted the Biden administration, saying that border states like hers bear the “brunt of the federal government’s failure on the border.”
But Mayorkas shot back at some lines in inquiry, including during a question from Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) seeking the nationalities of fentanyl trackers.
The majority of fentanyl trafficked into the U.S. is smuggled in through ports of entry and is carried by U.S. citizens.
“We well know that the trafficking of fentanyl is not specific to a nationality. Tragically, we have individuals from various countries of origin — we have American citizens — trafficking in fentanyl,” Mayorkas said.