Recently, while perusing left wing “email alerts”, I ran across an interesting report about an IDF military training camp in New York. I know, I’m slow–this is the first I’d heard of it. Kitat Konenut means a rapid response counter-terrorism unit. Such units in Israel have saved many lives. The source of the report was an article on Arutz 7 about Kitat Konenut. The Jerusalem Post and many other blogs and publications have written articles about them as well. I went to Kitat Konenut’s MySpace page to find out what they were about.
A new training facility is being set up in Northern Arizona, and a week long desert training course will be held in March, 2010.
While the website introduction and photos gave a lot of information, I wanted to find out more about the philosophy and goals of Kitat Konenut New York.
Yonatan Stern and Scott Brown, who run the organization, gave candid answers to several candid questions:
- With your emphasis on gun ownership, self defense, vigilance, patriotism, etc, you seem in some ways like a right wing militant group. Some people who you would be protecting are very leery of right wing groups. Of course there are many levels of “right wing”, everything from neo-nazis to average non-radical citizens who are concerned about being prepared for natural disasters, social and economic upheaval, and terrorism. What do you say to those who might see a need to be more prepared, but might be worried that you are extremist?
We are not a “right-wing” group. The right to bear arms is not a right wing issue, it is an American issue. You don’t need to be a right winger or a republican to support the Second Amendment. In fact, a majority of Democrats in Congress strongly support gun rights so this is a bipartisan issue. Just last year the Supreme Court reaffirmed the individual right to own a weapon, and that wasn’t a political decision, it was a legal and moral decision. This right is such a consensus issue that most lawmakers are afraid to even slightest degree of support for laws limiting gun freedoms, as they know they will lose their seats.
Now of course you have the right to disagree with the constitution. But that doesn’t make you a leftist, it makes you un-American.
Now for those who would consider our kind of group “right wing”, they should know that half or our members voted for John McCain, but the other half voted for Obama. We have people who support abortion, environmental activism, health care reform, ending the war in Iraq, and many other liberal causes. Such a group of people can hardly be called right wing. Of course we also have those who support right wing causes and very much identify with the right. But as a non-political group we enjoy a diverse array of views from across the political spectrum and welcome all Jews from all walks of life. The one thing that all our members have in common is our belief that no Jew should be a victim of violence, and that belief appeals to a wide audience.
Again, the second amendment is not a right or left issue, it’s about being a free citizen in a free country. And I don’t think you need to be a right winger to be a patriot either.
There is nothing extreme about us or our views. The only extremists are those who would call us extreme.
- Many people will argue that by forming military style rapid response units when serious incidents are rare, you are inviting aggression against Jewish communities. How do you answer that?
That claim is completely incorrect. First of all, violent antisemitic incidents are not as rare as one would like to think. Just look at the last year alone, with the deadly shooting attack at the DC Holocaust museum and the attempted bombing of synagogues in Riverdale, NY.
Aside from that we have information coming from reliable, high level sources that there are many organizations right now planning deadly attacks on Jewish targets in the US. Forming rapid-response units would not attract aggression against Jewish communities, except from those who would wish to harm us either way. From our experience, non-Jews respect our right to defend ourselves and understand why we need to do things like this.
Remember, we Jews are in a very special category. Historically we have always been victims of hate and violence in every country we have ever set foot in. It would be naive and foolish to make the mistake of assuming America will be any different.
Despite not being very overt, a high degree of antisemitism exists in many parts of American society, especially in Academic and far left wing circles. Just look at the virulent and violent response Jews were faced with during and following the conflict in Gaza. Why would people blame American Jews for something Israel is doing? Simple, because they don’t really hate Israel, they hate Jews and Israel is just an excuse.
- I understand you are looking to form well trained defense units who can handle serious attacks on a Jewish community, and that you want to train people who can go to their community and train others. What is your long term goal? To have a unit in every town that has a Jewish community, or to concentrate on the areas with the larger Jewish communities?
Along the same line, While the NY area, California, Florida and the major cities in the country can probably support such defense units, and will have enough interested young adults to form these units, many states have a smaller Jewish population, varying anywhere from 300 to maybe 300,000. From state to state the numbers vary widely. In many parts of the country there aren’t that many Jews and the community is not very cohesive, and don’t take the danger of attack seriously. Consequently you may not reach the states with small to medium sized Jewish populations, especially in the western states. Often in these areas, Jewish youth has little Jewish identity or knowledge, and may not see the value of this kind of emergency preparedness training. Of course, this could change if the danger gradually increases and becomes more obvious, but if there were a sudden eruption of attacks on Jewish communities or serious social upheaval, it could catch these communities by surprise. Do you have a long term plan for that, such as having enough trained people to be able to send them to these areas?
Yes, that is correct.
Our short term goal is to form rapid response teams in the larger Jewish communities in the US. These include New York, Miami and Los Angeles. Right now we are in the process of building up these Kitot Konenut (response teams) to get to the point where they are entirely self sufficient and able to cover the entire area of Jewish settlement within those urban centers, as well as their suburbs. We are starting in those areas as we see them as being the most visible, and therefore most likely targets of terrorist and antisemitic attacks.
Our long term goal is to set up response teams in every community – no matter how big or small – throughout the US. These will include smaller communities like Houston, Dallas, Seattle, San Diego, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Chicago, Cleveland, St. Louis, Denver, Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee, Atlanta, etc.
The goal here is to have a situation where the antisemite or potential terrorist will have to realize that Jewish communities anywhere are not a soft target and that he will have to face an armed militia force, better trained than himself, before he can kill any Jews.
Now in regards to alienated Jewish youth with little or no Jewish identity: This is a serious problem that the communities themselves will have to deal with if they want to have any hope of Jewish continuity. It isn’t something we can solve. We are a self defense group dealing with the physical protection of the Jewish people. The spiritual protection will have to be done in other ways, mainly Jewish education. That said, KKNY does take a lot of assimilated Jewish youth from isolated communities to our training camps and we try to instill in them a sense of Jewish pride, as well as giving basic lessons in Jewish history, philosophy, etc. We feel that these kinds of experiences strengthen those boys and girls connection to Judaism and their involvement in their communities.
It is also true that smaller, more isolated communities could be more in danger in case of a major upheaval, and that is why we find it vital to reach out to them too.
- Your photos show military style groups and military style training, for young adults who are able to get into top physical condition. Do you have programs for older individuals who believe such training would be beneficial and are willing to be community disaster preparedness coordinators?
At this point our training is geared towards young, strong Jews who can be counted on to protect their communities in the most professional way in the case of a violent incident. We of course encourage all Jews, regardless of age or fitness level to purchase firearms and train for self defense. However at the present time our budget does not allow us to run programs geared towards this demographic. Hopefully with proper funding, we will be able to expand into this field as well in the near future.
- Your training (based on photos) appears to be mainly military training for open country, but if Jewish community centers are attacked, it would be mainly in urban and suburban settings. Do you concentrate on training for urban and suburban emergencies? Do you spend more time in military training and gun handling, or more on other types of emergency preparedness and response (recognizing threats, communication, first aid, etc), or is your training broad, covering all these areas?
We try to train our members in the widest possible numbers of scenarios in which they may find themselves. Remember, as you can not usually anticipate where and when a terrorist will strike, you need to be prepared to handle all possible theatres of combat. However we try to keep our focus mainly on CQB training (Close Quarter Battle), as we see the urban environment as the most likely battlefield that Jews will find themselves in while facing terrorists in the US. Because of this, we modify our training to include a high degree of house-to-house shooting in our kill house, as well intense sessions of Krav Maga. Of course we also train in standard infantry tactics, camouflage, long range rifle and sniper training. But most of our courses are geared to Urban Warfare. First aid of course is also a priority and we make sure each of our members is certified in combat first aid as well as well trained in evacuating and treating wounded under fire.
One of the most important things we train in though is communication and coordination with police. No matter how good our members are, if the police arrive on the scene of an attack and our guys don’t know how to identify themselves to police as “the good guys”, you could have cases of friendly fire in which police mistake our guys for the terrorists. That’s why we make sure all our members know how to communicate with law enforcement personnel to avoid any unfortunate incidents.
- Obviously you foresee serious problems and larger scale attacks on Jewish communities and conduct military training. Do you see yourselves acting as military units in case of attack? If you knew that an attack was coming, would you want to head it off militarily?
Our training is for defensive purposes only. We do devote a large amount of our resources to monitoring and apprehending terrorist groups before they strike. We encourage our members to be alert to suspicious behavior that could be related to terrorism. For instance we could entirely avoid having to confront attackers violently if we can have them arrested and jailed before they carry out their plans. We have members on the streets in plain clothes patrolling day and night around synagogues, yeshivot and community centers. If they see a car full of Middle-Eastern men with beards, speaking Arabic while oddly circling around a Synagogue or photographing it, they will videotape the car, write down the license plate, follow it and call the police or FBI immediately. It’s all about vigilance and coordinating with the authorities. Violence is only a last resort. - What do you think will be the nature of these attacks, and who do you think the attackers will most likely be? There are credible reports of a large number of Islamic training camps in the US and Canada. Is that a major focus, or are there others?
We are aware of a large and growing number of Islamic terrorist compounds popping up all around the US. Infact, one of the largest ones “Islamberg” is only a 20 minute drive from our own Israeli Military Training camp in the Catskill Mountains of Upstate New York. They are so close to us that we can practically hear the gunshots from their terrorist training sessions. We also know that many of these groups are affiliated with Al Queida, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Jumaat Al Islamiyya, Hezbolla, etc. They are heavily recruiting Black Americans who are incarcerated for violent crimes in prisons throughout the US. These criminals are educated in their doctrine of hate and taught to be Islamic fighters, suicide bombers, etc. Many of these Black converts, as well as Arab Americans have been captured or killed fighting coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The fact that the Obama administration, as well as Bush administration before it, have done little other than monitor these domestic terror bases is nothing short of disgraceful. We are trying to raise awareness among our friends in congress to this threat in order to have them shut down, but on a more basic level we are training hard to counteract any terror attacks they may be planning against our communities.
The fact is though that we are not only concerned about terror attacks emanating from Islamic Fundamentalists. We have reliable information that many extremist groups may be planning deadly attacks on Jews. These include extreme right wing and Neo-Nazi groups whose influence is growing rapidly among disenfranchised poor rural whites, as well as far left wing and Marxist groups who see Israel as a Racist, Apartheid/Nazi regime that commits crimes against humanity, and view American Jews as Israel’s agents in the US.
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