Federal officials have charged a Las Vegas man for allegedly making antisemitic threats against U.S. Senator Jacky Rosen, citing the war between Israel and Hamas, the militant political organization ruling the Gaza Strip. John Anthony Miller is accused of leaving hateful voicemail messages, including one that said he would “finish what Hitler started.”
According to experts, that rhetoric falls in line with a global rise in hate speech since Hamas invaded Israel, massacring civilians, taking hostages, and inciting a brutal conflict in the Gaza Strip, where thousands of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli air strikes.
Samantha Kutner of Glitterpill LLC, an anti-terrorism research group, explained that many people lost sight of any nuance in the aftermath.
“There was a conflation of many Palestinians with Hamas, and there was also a conflation with all Jews globally, assuming that they support Zionism,” she said.
Zionism is the ideology behind Israel’s establishment as a modern, Jewish state in the historical homeland of the Jews. Beginning in the late 19th century, European Jewish leaders started advocating for mass migration to the Middle East as a means of escaping rising antisemitism – a movement that accelerated after the Holocaust.
According to court documents, Miller also went to a Las Vegas courthouse in order to see the senator, but was turned away by security because he refused to show identification.
Federal officials didn’t identify the senator by name. But KUNR independently verified the threats were leveled at Rosen, who is only the third Jewish woman to serve in the U.S. Senate.
“Threats against public officials should be taken seriously. Senator Rosen trusts the U.S. Attorney’s office and federal law enforcement to handle this matter,” said a spokesperson for Senator Rosen.
Kutner said the language used in the threats, which were also characterized by violent misogyny, fits a pattern of radicalization that often begins online, where extremist groups blame minorities for perceived wrongs.
“The only way to solve their individual life’s problems… is to take out an individual that’s representative of an out group that they’ve been consuming dehumanizing content about,” she said.
In a recent report, researchers at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue found antisemitic YouTube comments increased by 4963 percent in the three days after Hamas’ attack. Alternative social media platforms, where hate speech is often allowed to fester without consequences, similarly saw a spike in antisemitism during the same period.
“The Israel-Gaza war heightened the threat landscape, evidenced by a surge in antisemitic language on social media platforms, resulting in additional threats towards Jewish communities,” researchers wrote of their findings. “These threats took various forms online through graphic imagery or direct calls for violence, and in some cases can manifest in offline harms.”
Miller made his first court appearance last week. If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison.
