Page 244 - Encyclopedia Of Terrorism

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222———MATHEWS, ROBERT JAY (1953–1984)

controversy, he was held by the U.S. government for Further Reading
several years without being charged. He was finally
Curtiss, Richard H. “An American Dreyfus Affair: The Case
deported to Jordan in 1997.
of Mousa Abu Marzook.” Washington Report on Middle
Marzook was born in a Gaza refugee camp and East Affairs, May 31, 1997, Vol. 15, No. 8, 19.
studied at Helwan College of Engineering and Hall, Charles W., and Robert O’Harrow, Jr. “Virginia Man
Technology in Cairo. He traveled to the United States Suspected of Terrorism Known for Anonymity.”
in the early 1980s and earned a master’s degree in Washington Post, August 8, 1995.
industrial engineering at Colorado State University. Lancaster, John. “Freedom Suits Hamas Leader; Fresh From
Marzook received his Ph.D. in engineering from U.S. Jail, Abu Marzook Minds His Step in Jordan.”
Columbia State University in Louisiana in 1991. Washington Post, May 9, 1997.
Marzook apparently first joined the Palestinian Lancaster, John, and Charles W. Hall. “U.S. Is Asked
to Turn Over Terror Suspect; Israel Wants Marzook
militant group Hamas in 1992, when he became head
for Activities in Hamas.” Washington Post, July 29,
of the organization’s political bureau. Soon after,
1995.
Marzook moved to a suburban neighborhood outside
of Washington, D.C., with his wife and family. Four of
his six children were born in the United States. MATHEWS, ROBERT JAY (1953–1984)
In 1995, Marzook was detained at the New York’s
Kennedy Airport after returning from the Middle East.
His name had been added to a list of suspected terror- In 1984, Robert Jay Mathews was killed in a con-
ists after Israel issued a warrant for his arrest for con- frontation with federal agents on a remote island
spiracy to kill Israeli citizens. Israeli officials said that in Washington State’s Puget Sound. Few outside the
hundreds of thousands of dollars were transferred white supremacist and Christian Identity movements
from Marzook’s account into the bank account of had heard of Mathews before his death; however, he
Chicago auto dealer Muhammad Salah, who was later was the founder of the Order, one of the most infa-
arrested in Israel for distributing money to the military mous white supremacist groups of the 1980s.
wing of Hamas. Israel called for Marzook’s extradi- Mathews embraced the right-wing ideologies
tion, saying he was tied to 10 violent Hamas attacks early; at age 11, he joined the local John Birch Society
between 1990 and 1994. in Phoenix, Arizona. By high school, he was attending
Marzook freely admitted to leading Hamas’s polit- tax resistance seminars held by Arizona Patriot
ical bureau, but maintained that Hamas keeps politi- Marvin Cooley, who occasionally appointed Mathews
cal and military areas separate. He repeatedly denied sergeant-at-arms for meetings. At 19, Mathews
any involvement with Hamas’s military wing and formed the Sons of Liberty, a paramilitary group com-
compared himself to Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn posed mostly of Mormons and survivalists who
Féin, the legal-political wing of the Irish Republican trained in the nearby desert. By 1973, however, the
Army. Sons of Liberty was foundering. Mathews left Arizona
For nearly two years, U.S. authorities held Marzook and the tax rebellion movement and moved to the
in solitary confinement at the Metropolitan Correction rural community of Metaline Falls, Washington.
Center in New York City without charging him with a In Metaline Falls, Mathews joined the neo-Nazi
crime. Marzook first appealed the Israeli extradition National Alliance and began a reading program in
request, but he waived his right to an extradition “racial progress” that included Oswald Spengler’s
hearing in January 1997, saying he had lost faith in the Decline of the West and William Simpson’s Which
U.S. justice system. Way Western Man? His education later included The
However, Israel dropped the request for Marzook’s Road Back, a terrorist instruction manual, Essays of
extradition in April 1997, saying that trying Marzook a Klansman, by Louis Beam, and William Pierce’s
in Israel would provoke further violence. In May novel, The Turner Diaries, which portrays the violent
1997, the United States deported Marzook to Amman, overthrow of the U.S. government and a race war that
Jordan. Marzook was rearrested in Jordan, left the establishes an “Aryan” world.
country, and is currently operating from Damascus as By the early 1980s, Mathews had also connected
a Yemeni national. with the nearby Aryan Nations compound in Hayden
Lake, Idaho. Mathews shared with the Aryan Nations
See also HAMAS the goal of establishing a separate white nation in