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Alleged Jersey City Killers Connected to Same Group That Sparked Covington Outrage but Media Basically Ignored

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Tragedy struck Tuesday in Jersey City, New Jersey, when two shooters opened fire at a kosher supermarket, killing three civilians and engaging in an hours-long standoff with local authorities.

That standoff eventually resulted in the deaths of both alleged shooters — identified by authorities as David Anderson and Francine Graham — who had also taken the life of Jersey City Police Department Detective Joseph Seals at a nearby cemetery before their attack on the Jewish supermarket.

Citing a law enforcement official, The New York Times reported that Anderson had on several occasions espoused anti-Semitic rhetoric online.

According to CNN, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said at a news conference Thursday both suspects had expressed interest in a black supremacist movement known as the Black Hebrew Israelites — an organization that even the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center classifies as a hate group.

Grewal did say neither suspect appeared to have a formal connection to the anti-Semitic group.

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According to the SPLC, Black Hebrew Israelites “advocate the superiority of the black race and that African Americans represent God’s true ‘chosen people.’ As God’s ‘true’ Jews, BHI adherents believe that Jews who self-identify with Israel are ‘scam artists’ and imposters. BHI adherents believe they are divinely empowered by God with superiority.”

“Some BHI adherents have been prone to violence, which they feel is justified by God, as long as it helps rid the world of evil,” the SPLC says.

If the BHI name sounds familiar, it’s because members of the group popped up back in January as the main agitators of an incident that the establishment media wrongly blamed on a group of underage Catholic high school students from Kentucky.

Of course, the media did try to provide cover for a few of the group’s D.C.-based demonstrators when they confronted and intimidated Covington Catholic High School students outside the Lincoln Memorial.

Do you think the left's concerns over anti-Semitism are disingenuous?

The media was remarkably silent about racial, ethnic and religious hate coming from the BHI protesters on that occasion, opting instead to figuratively tar and feather Covington Catholic student Nicholas Sandmann by focusing on selectively edited footage of the confrontation to make it appear that the young man — who had been wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat — had somehow been to blame.

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Now, this is the same media establishment that can immediately turn an alt-right or white supremacist act of vandalism into a lengthy, national dialogue on the importance of fighting anti-Semitism.

Unlike back in January, when the media tried its best to ignore the Black Hebrew Israelites’ role in sparking the incident outside the Lincoln Memorial, they are covering the reported BHI connection to Tuesday’s shooting.

But will this tragedy be reported as emblematic of a larger problem?

I seriously doubt it.

Put simply, it’s because the media is generally only interested in discussing anti-Semitism when it furthers the left’s narrative.

And in this case, the narrative is that right-wing white supremacists are solely responsible for anti-Semitic sentiment.

As Tuesday’s tragic events show, this narrative is clearly false.

But that didn’t stop Michigan Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib from the shooting blaming white supremacy in a since-deleted tweet.

To the left, characteristics like race and religion are simply a tool used to divide politically dissimilar Americans, demonize conservatives and win votes.

When such matters cannot be used as an effective weapon, they fall to the wayside and something more divisive becomes the new point of focus.

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Andrew J. Sciascia was the supervising editor of features at The Western Journal. Having joined up as a regular contributor of opinion in 2018, he went on to cover the Barrett confirmation and 2020 presidential election for the outlet, regularly co-hosting its video podcast, "WJ Live," as well.
Andrew J. Sciascia was the supervising editor of features at The Western Journal and regularly co-hosted the outlet's video podcast, "WJ Live."

Sciascia first joined up with The Western Journal as a regular contributor of opinion in 2018, before graduating with a degree in criminal justice and political science from the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where he served as editor-in-chief of the student newspaper and worked briefly as a political operative with the Massachusetts Republican Party.

He covered the Barrett confirmation and 2020 presidential election for The Western Journal. His work has also appeared in The Daily Caller.




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