The Statement
AAP FactCheck examined a Facebook post from July 28, 2019 by Fair Dinkum Mate 2 featuring three stacked images detailing the number of Jewish terrorist attacks, the number of Christian terrorist attacks and the number of Islamic terrorist attacks since September 9, 2001.
The post reads: “Number of Jewish terrorist attacks since 9/11 – Zero”, “Number of Christian terrorist attacks since 9/11 – Zero” and “Number of Islamic terrorist attacks since 9/11 – 26855”. The post has been shared more than 620 times and attracted more than 50 comments and 280 reactions.
Fair Dinkum Mate 2 has more than 4900 followers. A previous page, Fair Dinkum Mate was closed by Facebook, according to a post by the group on March 20, 2018. Fair Dinkum Mate 2 predicts the social media platform will close its current page because “it seems we are not allowed to express conservative, political views that go against the narrative of the United Nations New World Order’, before adding “if you are in favour of free speech then I hope you enjoy this page”.
The Analysis
The image posted by Fair Dinkum Mate 2 does not include a source for its figures on the number of Jewish, Christian and Islamic terrorist attacks since September 11, 2001.
AAP FactCheck found a number of terrorist attacks had been committed by Jews and Christians since 9/11.
Regarding Jewish terror attacks, an Israeli soldier Eden Natan-Zada shot at a bus in northern Israel in August 2005, killing four Israeli-Arabs and injuring 12 others. Then Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon described the shooting as “a reprehensible act by a bloodthirsty Jewish terrorist who sought to attack innocent Israeli citizens”. He added: “This terrorist event was a deliberate attempt to harm the fabric of relations among all Israeli citizens.”
In July 2015, a Palestinian baby was burned alive and his parents and brother were seriously injured after Israeli extremists burned a West Bank family home, according to a report by news agency Agence France Presse (AFP). Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the incident as an “act of terrorism” which the report said was a term “rarely used by Israel in anti-Palestinian attacks”. Israel’s then defence minister Moshe Yaalon called the attackers “Jewish terrorists”.
In January 2019, Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom published a report detailing a rise in violence by “right-wing Jewish activists” during 2018. The newspaper said the incidents in which “extremists targeted security forces tripled from 2017 to 2018, from 14 to 42”.
Regarding Christian terrorist attacks, there are also a number of examples. In July 2011, Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people in a car bombing and shooting spree in the Norwegian capital of Oslo. A police official described Breivik as “a right-wing fundamentalist Christian”. A manifesto, signed by Breivik, titled ‘2083: A European Declaration of Independence’ said multiculturalism was “destroying European Christian civilisation”. Brevik was charged with committing acts of terror and voluntary homicide. He is serving a 21-year jail sentence with the possibility of an extension.
In November 2015, Robert Dear, a self-described Christian, killed three people and wounded nine others at a parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, USA. Mr Dear said in a 2016 interview from jail that started having mental problems following the 1993 siege at the Branch Davidian religious sect in Waco Texas, which left some 80 people dead. “It started 22 years ago in Waco… I’m a Christian and so when they burned up those Christians and 17 little kids and everything else I was pretty upset about it”. Dear is facing 179 charges, including murder and attempted murder but was ruled “mentally incompetent” to stand trial in August, 2019.
In Uganda, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) emerged in 1987 after leader Joseph Kony called for the African country to be governed according to his interpretation of the Bible’s Ten Commandments. The LRA abducted and killed thousands in northern Uganda, according to the US-based non-governmental body Human Rights Watch (HRW). Military campaigns against the LRA pushed the group into southern Sudan (now South Sudan) in 2005, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 2006 and the Central African Republic (CAR) in 2008.
In 2013, the United Nations estimated the LRA had killed more than 100,000 people and between 60,000 to 100,000 children had been abducted since its formation.
A 2018 BBC report detailed how LRA leader Joseph Kony instructed rebels to follow religious rituals such as making a sign of the cross before heading off to fight. “You must also take oil and draw a cross on your chest, your forehead, and each shoulder, and you must make a cross in oil on your gun. They say that the oil is the power of the Holy Spirit,” a former LRA fighter told Human Rights Watch. Kony remains on the run and is wanted on 12 counts of crimes against humanity and 21 counts of war crimes.
The Verdict
Based on this evidence, AAP Factcheck found the Facebook post to be false as there have been a number of terrorist attacks committed by Jews and Christians since 9/11.
False – The Facebook post is false.
First published August 8, 2019 17:39 AEST
