HAMPTON, Va. (AP) — President Barack Obama’s controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is blaming “them Jews” for keeping him from speaking to the president.

Wright, the former pastor of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, said he hasn’t spoken to Obama since he became president.

“Them Jews ain’t going to let him talk to me. I told my baby daughter that he’ll talk to me in five years when he’s a lame duck, or in eight years when he’s out of office,” Wright told the Daily Press of Newport News following a Tuesday night sermon at the 95th annual Hampton University Ministers’ Conference.

“They will not let him to talk to somebody who calls a spade what it is. … I said from the beginning: He’s a politician; I’m a pastor. He’s got to do what politicians do.”

Obama was a longtime member of the church but resigned from it and cut ties with Wright after videos surfaced during the presidential campaign showing Wright’s sometimes provocative sermons. Wright’s incendiary comment included shouting “God damn America” and accusing the government of creating AIDS.

In the interview Tuesday, Wright also criticized Obama for not sending a U.S. delegation to the World Conference on Racism held recently in Geneva, Switzerland, saying Obama chose not to for fear of offending Jews and Israel.

“Ethnic cleansing is going on in Gaza. Ethnic cleansing (by) the Zionist is a sin and a crime against humanity, and they don’t want Barack talking like that because that’s anti-Israel,” Wright said.

The White House declined to comment to the Associated Press on Thursday on Wright’s remarks. A phone message left by the AP at Wright’s home wasn’t immediately returned.

WASHINGTON (AP) — An 88-year-old white supremacist has been charged with murder for killing the security guard who had opened the door to let him into the U.S. Holocaust Memorial and Museum, officials said Thursday.

Security Guard Stephen T. Johns was shot to death Wednesday by Holocaust denier James von Brunn, who had left his car in a lane of traffic outside an entrance to the museum before walking in with a concealed rifle, District Police Chief Cathy Lanier said at a news conference.

Von Brunn, who once tried to kidnap members of the Federal Reserve, started shooting immediately, exchanging fire with guards who shot and critically injured him, stopping him from entering the museum and hurting anyone else, Lanier said.

In his car, officers found a notebook with a handwritten note saying, “You want my weapons — this is how you’ll get them. The Holocaust is a lie. Obama was created by Jews,” according to a court affidavit.

The museum was closed and flags flew at half-staff Thursday in honor of Johns, 39. Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty said quick work by law enforcement “literally saved the lives of countless people.”

Bouquets of roses, lilies and other flowers had been left outside the museum walls Thursday morning. The entrance where the shooting occurred was still cordoned off by police tape.

Von Brunn was being treated at a Washington hospital. A self-described artist, advertising man and author living in Annapolis, Md., von Brunn wrote an anti-Semitic treatise, “Kill the Best Gentiles,” decried “the browning of America” and claimed to expose a Jewish conspiracy “to destroy the White gene-pool.” He also wrote of a lifetime of seething anger.

“It’s better to be strong than right,” he said in one of his dark screeds online, “unless you like dying. Crowds hate good guys.”

Von Brunn was charged with murder and killing in the course of possessing a firearm at a federal facility, both capital offenses under federal law, and authorities said Thursday hate crime charges were also possible.

“We know what Mr. von Brunn did yesterday at the Holocaust museum. Now it’s our responsibility to determine why he did it,” said Joseph Persichini, assistant director of the Washington FBI field office. “We have to ask ourselves did all these years of public display of hatred impact his actions.”

The Homeland Security Department called the shooting a criminal incident and said it does not appear to have a connection to terrorism, according to a joint Homeland Security and FBI assessment issued Wednesday.

However, Persichini characterized the incident as “domestic terrorism.”

The assessment, obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, said von Brunn is associated with right-wing extremism.

Persichini said Thursday that authorities found many documents in von Brunn’s vehicle and that any people or places named in them have been contacted or visited. He said he would not characterize it as a list.

Outside the museum, authorities searched von Brunn’s car for explosives, but found none. A court affidavit describes the shooting at the museum in detail and says it was captured on security video.

FBI agent Ronald Farnsworth said in the document that for the past two years, von Brunn has been living with his son and his son’s fiancee in Annapolis, Md., renting a room from them for $400 a month. FBI agents searched von Brunn’s bedroom and found numerous papers and a 30/30 rifle.

Investigators are trying to determine how von Brunn acquired the .22-caliber rifle used in the attack, said two other law enforcement officials, also speaking on condition of anonymity.

Israeli officials and U.S. Muslim and Hispanic groups all expressed shock at the attack, which unfolded in a public space filled with records, photographs and exhibits standing as stark testament to the Nazis’ killing more than 6 million Jews in the Holocaust of more than a half-century ago. Johns, the guard who died, was black.

The museum was crowded with schoolchildren and other tourists, but all escaped injury.

Ashley Camp, 14, of Forsyth, Ill., on a field trip with more than 40 other students, said she heard two or three gunshots. Soon after, a security guard ordered the group to run to the exit.

“We had to sprint as fast as we could out the door,” she said. “I thought it was the movie (part of a museum exhibit), but then everyone started screaming and running.”

Law enforcement officials said von Brunn’s car was found near the museum and was tested for explosives. They spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss the investigation.

Von Brunn was sentenced in 1983 for attempted armed kidnapping and other charges in his 1981 bid to seize Fed board members. A guard captured him outside the room where the board was meeting. He had a revolver, sawed-off shotgun and knife in a bag with him. He served more than six years in prison.

“The subject resides in my memory like old road-kill,” he wrote of the capture. “What could have been a slam-bang victory turned into ignoble failure. Recalling all of this presents an onerous task. I am getting near the end of the diving board.”

Von Brunn is a native of St. Louis, a World War II veteran who served in the Navy for about 14 years, worked in advertising in New York City and moved to Maryland’s Eastern Shore in the late 1960s, where he stayed in advertising and tried to make a mark as an artist. He was living in New Hampshire the year of his arrest at the Fed headquarters.

Public records show that in 2004 and 2005 he lived briefly in Hayden, Idaho, which for years was home to the Aryan Nations, a racist group run by neo-Nazi Richard Butler.

Civil rights groups were familiar with his virulent history.

“We’ve been tracking this guy for decades,” said Heidi Beirich, director of research for the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, which tracks hate crimes. “He thinks the Jews control the Federal Reserve, the banking system, that basically all Jews are evil,” she said. “He’s an extreme anti-Semite.”

His Internet writings say the Holocaust was a hoax. “At Auschwitz the ‘Holocaust’ myth became Reality, and Germany, cultural gem of the West, became a pariah among world nations,” he wrote.

The attack is “further proof that anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial have not passed from the world,” said Israel’s information and Diaspora minister, Yuli Edelstein.

“It’s the first domestic terrorist of this age that we’ve seen,” Beirich said. “It just shows you it doesn’t matter what age you are — you can be driven to violence from these belief systems.”

The attack was the third unsettling shooting that appeared to have political underpinnings.

A 23-year-old Army private, William Andrew Long, was shot and killed outside a recruiting office this month in Arkansas and a fellow soldier wounded. The suspect, a Muslim convert, has said he considers the killing justified because of the U.S. military presence in the Middle East.

Late last month, abortion provider Dr. George Tiller was shot to death in his church. The man accused of killing him is a longtime vocal opponent of abortion.

JERUSALEM — Under mounting American pressure to define his intentions regarding peace efforts, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said Sunday that he would make a major policy speech next week mapping out the government’s “principles for achieving peace and security.”

The announcement came against the background of rising tensions with the Obama administration, which has demanded that Israel freeze all settlement construction in the West Bank. The Netanyahu government insists that construction within existing settlements should continue.

In another point of contention, Mr. Netanyahu has refused to endorse explicitly the notion of establishing an independent Palestinian state, a cornerstone of American and European policy on the Middle East.

President Obama’s Middle East envoy, George J. Mitchell, is expected in Jerusalem and other parts of the region this week.

On a stopover in Oslo, Mr. Mitchell said Monday that Washington wants “immediate” talks between the Palestinians and Israel to forge a comprehensive peace agreement. Reuters quoted him as saying that the aim of such talks was “a comprehensive peace and normalization of relations” between Israel and its neighbors, which would also serve “the security interests of the United States.”

“The president has told me to exert all efforts to create the circumstance when the parties can begin immediate discussions,” Mr. Mitchell was quoted as telling a Palestinian donors’ conference in the Norwegian capital.

“It’s important that there is a building of institutions and governmental capacity so that at an early time there can be an independent and viable Palestinian state,” he said.

On Sunday, in comments at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting, Mr. Netanyahu said, “We want to achieve peace with the Palestinians and with the countries of the Arab world, while attempting to reach maximum understanding with the United States and our friends around the world.”

His government, led by the conservative Likud Party, was sworn in nine weeks ago. Mr. Netanyahu says he has been reformulating Israeli peace policy. Some Israeli commentators have wondered how Mr. Netanyahu, whose last government fell apart in 1999, seemingly returned to office without a clear agenda.

Ben Caspit, a columnist, wrote Sunday in the newspaper Maariv that Mr. Netanyahu, “who opted to squander his period of grace on meaningless ‘reassessment’ meetings, is now going to have to be particularly creative if he wants to renew trust between the United States and Israel.”

Israeli officials say they expect the Obama administration to respect understandings they say were reached — some written and some oral — with the Bush administration on building within existing settlements.

The Obama administration has bluntly dismissed Israel’s argument. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday that “there is no memorialization of any informal and oral agreements” on construction in settlements. “If they did occur, which, of course, people say they did, they did not become part of the official position of the United States government,” she said.

Both clarifying and complicating the issue on Sunday, Dov Weissglas, who was a senior adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon when some of the understandings were reached early in the decade and was his liaison with American officials, said the written understanding on development within the settlements was “part of a host of understandings around the road map.”

The road map, a 2003 peace plan, called on Israel to freeze all settlement activity and on the Palestinians to dismantle terrorist networks. The goal was the creation of a Palestinian state.

“In other words,” Mr. Weissglas told Israel Radio, “whoever does not accept the road map cannot demand rights without taking on the obligations.”

Mr. Netanyahu has said his government will abide by signed agreements, but he has not publicly endorsed the road map. Israeli officials emphasize that the Palestinians and Arab parties, and not only Israel, have obligations to fulfill, a point also made by President Obama on Friday.

In Germany, Mr. Obama said the Palestinians “have to continue to make progress on security in the West Bank” and deal with “corruption and mismanagement” within the Palestinian Authority.

NARRAGANSETT — School officials have assembled a team of faculty, parents and religious leaders to address students about tolerance after anti-Semitic graffiti appeared in a boys bathroom at the high school earlier this month.

In addition to the graffiti, Superintendent Katherine E. Sipala cited other incidents involving a small group of students perpetrating hateful speech and teasing other students about their ethnicity in the school. She said the behavior is unacceptable and the district is addressing the issue full force.

“When I heard about the graffiti, I was so sad about it,” Sipala said. “But we’re not going to get frozen by it. We’re taking this seriously and want parents to know that we’re going to deal with it appropriately.”

Principal Daniel F. Warner sent a letter to parents on Tuesday explaining what happened. He said the graffiti was “hurtful” and “disturbing” and “goes against everything we are trying to accomplish here at Narragansett High School.”

A team lead by school psychologist Ruth Anderson, consisting of parents, faculty and community members – including local clergy – will meet with students and is in the planning stages for a broader response in the coming days. The group was formed immediately after the graffiti incident.

Sipala said that clergy members will help the district bring in speakers to address the issue of intolerance and help staff and students deal with their feelings if they have been discriminated against.

In terms of the students who have been teasing other students, Sipala said it is a small group of younger students, consisting mostly of freshmen. Those students have been spoken to on an individual basis and their parents have been involved.

As far as the student who wrote the graffiti, Sipala said that the police have been notified and there is an ongoing investigation.

But the broader issue isn’t finding and punishing the student responsible for the graffiti, Sipala said. It’s to use the situation as a learning experience and opportunity to improve the overall school atmosphere.

In addition, school officials are asking parents to lead by example. In his letter, Warner wrote, “A heartfelt conversation centered on being accepting of one another would speak volumes to your children.”

The situation also gives Warner hope that students who have witnessed discriminatory behavior will feel empowered to speak up, or will realize that their silence can be interpreted as condoning such behavior.

“By doing nothing,” Warner said, “they give tacit approval that these events are within the boundaries of acceptable high school behavior. They are not.”

New York, NY, June 1, 2009 … The number of anti-Semitic incidents in the United States declined for the fourth consecutive year, according to newly issued statistics from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The League’s annual Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents, issued today, counted a total of 1,352 incidents of vandalism, harassment and physical assaults against Jewish individuals, property and community institutions in 2008, representing a 7 percent decline from the 1,460 incidents reported in 2007.

The Audit identified 37 physical assaults on Jewish individuals, 702 incidences of anti-Semitic vandalism, and 613 cases of harassment in 2008.  They included acts against high-profile Jewish community institutions and communal properties, such as the repeated vandalism of the San Francisco Holocaust Memorial, and the desecration of dozens of graves at a Jewish cemetery in Chicago with swastikas and hate group symbols.

Of the total 1,352 incidents, 42 percent occurred at homes, private buildings or businesses, and 23 percent took place in educational establishments, including public and private schools and universities, according to the Audit.

 ”It is encouraging that the number of anti-Semitic incidents continues to decline, but the sheer volume of incidents reported and the violent nature of many of the physical assaults is a reminder that we cannot be complacent,” said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director.  “Had law enforcement not thwarted the alleged terrorist bombing plot against synagogues in Riverdale, New York, it would have been a horrific anti-Semitic attack.”

The 2008 Audit comprises data from 44 states and the District of Columbia, including official crime statistics as well as information provided to ADL’s regional offices by victims, law enforcement officers and community leaders.  The Audit identifies criminal acts, such as vandalism, violence and threats of violence, as well as non-criminal incidents of harassment and intimidation, including hate propaganda, leafleting and verbal slurs.

“The Audit is one barometer of anti-Semitism,” said Mr. Foxman.  “The explosive expansion of the Internet and social-networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube has become a new frontier for anti-Semitism, and so anti-Jewish expression is hard to quantify in this environment.  It’s here today, gone tomorrow, and back the next day.

“In 2008, the financial crisis brought about an increase in rhetoric targeting Jews, with letters in newspapers and on Web sites blaming Jews for the misdeeds of a select few, with Bernard Madoff topping the list,” added Mr. Foxman.  “Hate groups and anti-Semites used the global economic downturn to breathe new life into old myths of greedy and money-hungry American Jews, and these took on a life of their own on the Internet and in the real world.”

Anti-Semitic incidents last peaked in 2004, when the League reported 1,821 incidents in the U.S.

For reporting purposes, the Audit divides anti-Semitic incidents into three categories: Anti-Semitic Assaults, involving violence against Jewish individuals or those thought to be Jewish; Vandalism, such as property damage, cemetery desecration or anti-Semitic graffiti; and Harassment, including threats, slurs and activity by anti-Semitic hate groups:

• Assaults: A total of 37 anti-Semitic assaults were reported in 2008.  The assaults included attacks with baseball bats and other weapons, punching and rock-throwing.  In some cases, victims were hospitalized.

• Vandalism:  There were 702 cases of anti-Semitic vandalism reported in 2008, up from 612 cases in 2007. 

• Harassment: A total of 613 incidents of anti-Semitic harassment were reported in 2008.  (In 2007, the categories of assaults and harassment were combined for reporting purposes, for a total of 745 incidents.  In 2008, the combined total of assaults and harassment was 650).

“The bad news is Jews continue to be the number one religion group targeted for hate,” said Glen S. Lewy, ADL National Chair.  “The good news is there’s a greater awareness within local Jewish communities that the potential for anti-Semitic activity should always be a concern. Communities have responded with heightened security and by partnering with law enforcement in an attempt to mitigate the threat.”

Continuing a longtime trend, the states with the highest totals were those with large Jewish populations.  The top four states accounted for 59 percent of the anti-Semitic incidents recorded by ADL. 

The states with the highest totals were New Jersey (238, down from 247); California (226, up from 186); New York (207, down from 351); Florida (122, down from 127); Pennsylvania (97, down from 99); Massachusetts (52, down from 95); and Connecticut (38, down from 49).