The DC Murders: What's Next?

This article first appeared in New English Review.

Along with the shock and outrage I feel over the senseless murder of Sarah Lynn Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, two Israeli embassy employees in Washington DC, there is also a sense of foreboding I am feeling. I have been watching this Palestinian-inspired Jew-hatred building in our country since about 2007, when I was teaching at the University of California at Irvine. How many years now have we heard these obnoxious chants on our college campuses-”Free free Palestine” and “Long live the Intifada”? Not only have these chants metastasized from the campuses to our streets, we have increasingly heard the chant of “globalize the intifada”. Intifadas or “uprisings” as practiced by the Palestinians over the past few decades have involved the targeted murder of Israeli civilians. They can romanticize it all they want with their images of little boys using slingshots against Israeli tanks, but it is really about not just resisting the Israeli Defense Forces, but about killing Jews, no matter their age or their gender.

That’s exactly what has happened. We see it not only in the US but Western Europe as well. The pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protests have become more disruptive and more violent. We have college encampments, the refusal to follow police orders, and police being injured while dealing with anti-Israel, pro-Hamas protests, as happened days ago in Berlin, Germany.

Now this. Two innocent employees of the Israeli embassy murdered in cold blood simply because of who they were. Whether the alleged killer knew they were employees of the Israeli embassy is open to question. They were at the Capital Jewish Museum, where a Jewish event was taking place. Surely he knew that. Surely, he assumed they were Jews. (Liscinsky apparently comes from a mixed Jewish-Christian family.) 

The issue of whether there will be enhanced hate crime charges is still not settled, but thank God we now have a Justice Department that will pursue every avenue. This heinous act must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Given the reaction on the left a few months ago when many of them celebrated Luigi Mangione, the man accused of murdering Brian Thompson,  the United Health Care CEO, I wonder how long it will take before we see the pro-Hamas crazies on our campuses start chanting, “Free Elias Rodriguez!” The thought makes me sick to my stomach, but keep in mind, we are talking about people in academia, both students and faculty members, who doubled down on their support for Hamas after October 7, 2023. No matter what horrors those beasts committed against innocent women, men, and children-even infants- the anti-Israel fanatics will never abandon Hamas. They are celebrating some of the most unspeakable atrocities we have seen since the Holocaust.

But returning to the theme of “globalizing the infidafa”. What has happened in Washington, DC may portend a new stage, a new escalation in going after innocent Jewish civilians.  To be sure, these two victims are not the first Jews murdered in the US or Europe in recent years just for being Jews. France, in particular, has seen terrible incidents involving the murders of Jews, including old women who survived the Holocaust only to be murdered in their own homes by people who brought a centuries-old hatred of Jews with them to their adopted country. 

But now here we have a 31-year-old suspect named Elias Rodriguez, a graduate of the University of Illinois in Chicago, who I assume is not a Muslim (unless he is a convert), and has no apparent link to the Middle East. The alleged assassin has had some connection in the past with the radical leftist Party of Socialism and Liberation. Is it possible that he bought into the Palestinian narrative when he was in college? Was he ever involved with Students for Justice in Palestine? I don’t know; maybe this all started after he left college, but I think it is worth finding out. Even if it has no evidentiary value, it is important just from an intelligence point of view. 

To what extent, if any, has the hateful anti-Jewish rhetoric and lawlessness that are rampant on our campuses inspired the murder of these two victims in Washington, DC? Is the danger to our Jewish citizens now rising to an even higher level, as evidenced by this latest attack? I pray not, but it is time for law enforcement and prosecutors at every level to crack down and prosecute these attacks against Jews to the fullest extent of the law. Both here and in Europe, mere expressions of sympathy do not suffice. We have had enough with this intifada crap in our society. What is needed is concrete action on the part of our justice system and our universities to stand with and protect our Jewish fellow citizens.