(New York) A New York State student is to be brought to justice on Wednesday for online murder threats against his Jewish classmates, amid fears of a rise in anti-Semitic and racist crimes with the war in the Middle East.
Several American officials have denounced anti-Semitic and Islamophobic acts in the United States since the Hamas attacks against Israel on October 7 and then Israel’s bombings on Gaza.
Patrick Dai, 21, a student at Cornell University in New York, was arrested Tuesday, accused of posting online “threats to kill or harm” Jewish people, American judicial authorities announced Tuesday in a statement.
The man, who faces up to five years in prison, must be presented to judges on Wednesday, they added.
The suspect also threatened to “stab and slit the throats of every Jewish man on campus, rape and throw off a cliff every Jewish woman, and decapitate every Jewish baby.”
American judicial authorities did not specify whether the student had made a direct reference to the war in the Middle East.
This arrest demonstrates the commitment of the American government “against illegal acts motivated by hatred”, assured Wednesday Attorney General Merrick Garland.
“Threats against Jewish, Muslim and Arab communities have increased significantly in our country,” he said during a virtual forum on hate.
“The Department of Justice does not tolerate any violence or illegal threats of violence fueled by anti-Semitism or Islamophobia,” he insisted, according to his remarks transcribed in a press release.
The Cornell student is notably accused of having threatened to “bring an assault rifle to campus and shoot all the Jewish pigs,” including “shooting” at a kosher dining hall, the statement said.
The university said on Sunday that police were investigating anti-Semitic threats posted on the internet.
On Monday, the White House warned of an “alarming increase in anti-Semitic incidents in schools and on university campuses”, without giving a precise figure.
The war between Israel and Hamas is causing strong tensions in the most prestigious American universities, such as Harvard, where around thirty student organizations have designated “the Israeli regime entirely responsible for the violence”.
The text provoked the indignation of several political leaders and public figures.
In an open letter, Israeli university presidents on Wednesday accused American campuses of having become “breeding grounds for anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic sentiments, largely fueled by a naive and biased understanding of the conflict.”
In Israel, more than 1,400 people were killed, mainly civilians, during the bloody Hamas attack on October 7, according to the authorities.
The Hamas Health Ministry announced Wednesday that 8,796 people, mainly civilians, including 3,648 children, have been killed since the October 7 attack in the Gaza Strip, a poor and cramped territory relentlessly bombarded by Israel.