American student faces court over anti-Semitic threats

A United States university student accused of making violent threats to Jewish classmates was to appear in a New York court Wednesday, days after the White House warned about an "alarming" rise in anti-Semitic incidents in schools since Israel's war with Hamas terrorists began.

Patrick Dai, a 21-year-old at Cornell University, was arrested Tuesday for allegedly posting comments online calling for the deaths of Jewish people and threatening to "shoot up" a college building, the Justice Department said.

Dai posted to a Cornell discussion forum "calling for the deaths of Jewish people and a post that said (he was) 'gonna shoot up 104 west,'" a Kosher dining hall at the school that mostly caters to Jewish students and is next to the Cornell Jewish Center, according to a Justice Department statement.

"In another post, Dai allegedly threatened to 'stab' and 'slit the throat' of any Jewish males he sees on campus, to rape and throw off a cliff any Jewish females, and to behead any Jewish babies," the statement said, adding that Dai also threatened to shoot Jewish students at the school's Ithaca, New York campus.

US Attorney General Merrick Garland highlighted the case as part of "a significant increase in the volume and frequency of threats against Jewish, Muslim, and Arab communities across our country."

"As this arrest shows, we are focusing our efforts on confronting and disrupting illegal threats wherever they arise," Garland said, according to a readout of remarks he delivered at a virtual forum focused on hate crimes.

"The Justice Department has no tolerance for violence or unlawful threats of violence fueled by anti-Semitism or Islamophobia."

In Illinois, a 71-year-old man stands accused of stabbing to death a six-year-old Palestinian-American boy last month in an attack linked to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.