Two Jews, employees of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC, were murdered in a terrorist attack Wednesday night outside the Capital Jewish Museum.
They were young, a couple. The man had bought a ring and was going to propose next week.
In the coming days, we’ll learn much about the shooter and the path that led him to walk up to two strangers enjoying a night out on the town and assassinate them in cold blood.
But the details hardly matter: The killer already told us everything we need to know.
As he was being detained, he shouted the words that have become the soundtrack to so much American suffering: “Free Palestine.”
The murders were a reminder, as if we needed another, that “Free Palestine” is not about the war in Gaza, not about Israel’s response to Hamas’ atrocities on Oct. 7, not about the well-being of Palestinians or any other living beings.
“Free Palestine” is the rallying cry of a terrorist operation that is funded by foreign governments and designed to sow chaos, fear, and violence in America’s streets.
This violence always begins with Jews, but it never ends there. Free Palestine’s real target is America.
Shortly after the grim news broke, President Trump spoke to Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter and promised him to do whatever it takes to fight this deadly hatred.
But serious and committed as the president may be, the fight ahead of us will require greater resources than even the American government has at its disposal.
Because the fight we face isn’t merely against a gaggle of violent radicals; it’s also the fight against all those who worked assiduously to get us to this murderous moment.
It’s a fight against the international organizations peddling modern-day blood libels, as the UN’s humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, did when he went on the BBC earlier this week and argued that unless the world stops Israel’s murderous spree, 14,000 Palestinian babies will die in Gaza in the next two days.
That this, if true, would be the equivalent of 27% of the death toll for the entire war, all babies, and all perishing in 48 hours, didn’t seem to trouble reporters and editors in major news outlets, who amplified Fletcher’s outlandish claim uncritically.
Our fight is against them, too: Long after it was obvious that the assassination was a terrorist attack targeting Jews, American media outlets, with very few exceptions, still spoke vaguely of a “shooting” claiming the lives of two unspecified victims.
On college campuses, our fight’s been going on for nearly two years now. We fight it even as university presidents and professors rush to defend thugs who assault Jewish students, disrupt classes, and disseminate terrorist propaganda.