Eli Lake, Columnist

White Nationalism Is a Terrorist Threat, but Not Like Radical Islam

The U.S. can’t use the same tactics against white supremacists as it uses against Islamist terrorists.

March 21, 2019 at 10:00 AM UTC

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

Christchurch, New Zealand, March 16, 2019.
Photographer: Fiona Goodall/Getty Images AsiaPac

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In the aftermath of last week’s massacre of 50 Muslims at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, it has become common to equate white nationalism with radical Islam. A typical comment came from Senator Elizabeth Warren: “In the same way that ISIS and al-Qaeda terrorism pose a threat to the U.S.,” she said, “so does the rise of white nationalism.”

This perspective is understandable. Right-wing extremist violence is a major domestic threat. According to the Anti-Defamation League’s database, it has accounted for about 73 percent of terrorist-related murders in the U.S. in the last 10 years.