National Review Online
Thursday, May 22, 2025
Ever since the October 7 massacres, chants of “Globalize
the Intifada” by Hamas-sympathizing radicals could be heard regularly in
protests that have taken over college campuses, blocked off city streets,
disrupted traffic, and shut down access to airports. On Wednesday night, one of
these radicals decided to turn those words into action.
The suspected gunman, who chanted “Free, Free Palestine”
when he was later taken into custody, opened fire near the Capital Jewish
Museum as attendees were leaving an event sponsored by the American Jewish
Committee for young diplomats. The attack killed a young couple — 30-year-old
Yaron Lischinsky, an Israeli Christian who served as a research assistant at
the Israeli Embassy, and Sarah Milgrim, a 26-year-old Jewish Kansas native who
organized missions and delegation visits for the embassy. Shortly after the
shooting came the bitter news that Lischinsky had just purchased an engagement
ring and had planned to propose to Milgrim next week in Jerusalem.
The suspected shooter, Elias Rodriguez, is right out of central casting as far as left-wing extremists
go. He was once a part of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, a group that
advocates a socialist takeover of the United States and is consumed by loathing
for both Israel and America.
In 2017, according to the group’s Liberation publication,
he took part in a Black Lives Matter protest outside of then-Chicago Mayor Rahm
Emanuel’s home. He lamented Amazon’s “whitening of Seattle” and described the
U.S. as “a nation of cities dominated and occupied by massive corporations
where only the rich and white can live and the vast majority of us must live on
the edges of the city and society.”
One witness told Fox & Friends that after the gunshots were
heard, Rodriguez walked into the museum and said somebody should call the
police. After playing dumb for a while, according to the witness, he pulled a
keffiyeh out of his bag and said, “I did it. I did this for Gaza.”
As left-wing antisemitism exploded during the previous
administration, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were reluctant to take action
because they feared the backlash it would cause within their own base,
hindering Democrats’ prospects in Michigan. As a result, statements about
antisemitism often devolved into generic expressions of opposition to “hate”
and smuggled in references to Islamophobia.
Given that President Trump has made the fight against
antisemitism in our cities and on college campuses a top priority, we are
hopeful that the current administration will take a stronger approach. Attorney
General Pam Bondi said that Acting U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro will
prosecute the suspect, once charged, to the full extent of the law.
The targeting of a specifically Jewish event to advance
the Palestinian cause was an act of international
terrorism on U.S. soil, and should be treated as such. But beyond
prosecuting the suspect in this case, there must be a concerted strategy to
make sure that America remains a safe place for Jews to live and worship. As
this attack reminds us, radicals who seek to destroy Israel also hate America.
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