APn 02/11 1722 Anti-Semitism Copyright, 1988. The Associated Press. All rights reserved. P

APn 02/11 1722 Anti-Semitism

   Copyright, 1988.  The Associated Press.  All rights reserved.


   PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- While membership in white supremacist
or  hate groups is decreasing nationwide, new groups keep forming
that  are  more  violent  and  extreme  than  their   precursors,
officials  of  the  Anti-Defamation  League  of B'nai B'rith said
Thursday.

   "(Hate)  changes  its  colorations,"  said   Abraham   Foxman,
national  director  of  the  group. "The names are different, but
it's still there."

   Foxman was in Palm Beach for three-day conference of the ADL's
National Executive Committee, made up  of  250  Jewish  community
leaders.   The panel is discussing anti-Semitism, Jewish-Catholic
relations, Soviet Jewry and growing unease in the  United  States
about Israel's policies in occupied territories.

   The  group  released a 139-page report, called "Hate Groups In
America: A Record of Bigotry and Violence," an update of a  study
done eight years ago.

   It  identifies  at  least  67  active  racist and anti-Semitic
organizations operating in the United States and  said  about  50
publications regularly "spew racist hatred and anti-Semitism."

   The  report  said  Klan  membership  slipped between 8,000 and
10,000, down to about 5,500, since the 1982 report,  with  "other
traditional    segments   of   the   movement   losing   strength
proportionally."

   The ADL quotes Justice Department  figures  showing  that  150
people  have been prosecuted for racially motivated violence from
1979 to 1985, including 84 members of the  Ku  Klux  Klan.    The
examples cited include the slaying of Denver radio talk show host
Alan  Berg,  the  bombing  of synagogues in Indiana and Idaho and
arson at a Missouri church.

   "Traditional hate groups such as the Klan and  the  neo-Nazis,
who  for  many,  many  years  were competitive, in the last dozen
years have begun to meld together and merge in  common  cause  to
set  up  ...  new  organizations  such as The Order and the Aryan
Nations," said Justin Finger, associate national director of  the
ADL.

   "There's one specifically dark cloud on the horizon," he said,
"the  emergence of an import from England called the skinheads --
young people in their teens and 20s who shave  their  heads  into
punk  cuts, listen to hard rock music, wear Nazi regalia, and are
bitterly hostile to Jews, blacks and Hispanics."

   Finger said the skinheads have surfaced in  Midwestern  cities
such as Chicago, Cincinnati and Dallas, as well as several cities
in   Florida,   including   Clearwater,   Gainesville   and   St.
Petersburg.

   "What is significant about the emergence of this group is that
more  traditional  extremists  are  delighted  because  they  see
skinheads as a new and fertile recruiting ground for the future,"
Finger said.

   The  report  indicated "there has been a forceful crackdown on
the hate movement  where  criminal  activity  is  taking  place,"
Finger said.

   The  report  will  be sent to the media and to law enforcement
agencies to help combat anti-Semitism and racism.

   Meanwhile, Foxman said his group is concerned about television
images of Israeli soldiers beating Palestinian protesters.

   Television, he said, "shows a media bite  without  perspective
or history, and without understanding."

   "The   way   we   see  these  pictures,  it  looks  like  (the
Palestinians are) young kids acting out their anxieties and their
hostilities.  It isn't Berkeley and  it  isn't  Chicago.    We're
dealing with another version of war," he said.

   Until the Israelis have someone "reasonable" to negotiate with
over  the  fate  of the Palestinians, there will continue to be a
crisis, he said.