I’m making this into a separate post because it pains me so much: it was the first thing I read online when I woke up this morning. Surely as a result of worldwide Jew hatred, instigated by the pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli protestors in America (indeed, throughout the world), a pair of young aides at the Israeli embassy in Washington were shot to death by, yes, a “Free, free Palestine” protestor. The murder took place right outside the Capital Jewish Museum, also in Washington. From the NYT (article archived here):
Two young Israeli Embassy aides were shot and killed outside an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in downtown Washington on Wednesday night by a man who shouted pro-Palestinian slogans after he was detained, according to law enforcement officials.
The close-range shooting occurred shortly after 9 p.m. on a street outside the Capital Jewish Museum, where the American Jewish Committee was hosting a reception for young diplomats. The area is the heart of official Washington, packed with federal buildings, embassies and museums. The Capitol, the F.B.I.’s Washington field office and the headquarters of the Justice Department are all near the museum.
The suspect, identified as Elias Rodriguez, 30, of Chicago, was detained shortly after the shooting and there was no ongoing threat to public safety, law enforcement officials said.
Pamela A. Smith, the chief of the Metropolitan Police Department, told reporters at a news conference that Mr. Rodriguez exclaimed, “Free, free Palestine,” after he was in custody. He also informed the police where he had discarded the weapon used in the shooting, Chief Smith said.
Israel’s foreign ministry identified the victims as Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim. Mr. Lischinsky was a research assistant in the political department at the embassy and Ms. Milgrim organized trips to Israel, according to the ministry.
Yechiel Leiter, the Israeli ambassador, said at the news conference that the two people killed were a couple about to be engaged. “The young man purchased a ring this week with the intention of proposing to his girlfriend next week in Jerusalem,” he said.
But being the NYT, the paper couldn’t resist putting in this paragraph:
After the deadly Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, the Israeli military began a campaign in Gaza has devastated the enclave. It set off a wave of pro-Palestinian protests, including at Israeli embassies and at American college and university campuses. The Israeli Embassy in Washington has been a particular focus for protesters.
Did the NYT forget that the protests against Israel and for Palestine began immediately after the October 7 attacks, and Israel did not launch its invasion into Gaza until a week later, and a full-scale invasion nearly three weeks later? But that’s irrelevant; what’s clear is that Israel was never going to get the world’s sympathy, if it attacked Hamas—except perhaps for a day or two.
A bit about the couple from the WSJ:
Nissim Otmazgin, a dean at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who taught Lischinsky, said he was gentle, hardworking and an idealist who was interested in building bridges between Israel and other countries. He spoke English, Hebrew, German and Japanese.
“He knew he wanted to be a diplomat. It was his dream,” he said. “A dream that shattered.”
Milgrim, who was American, worked at the Israeli Embassy’s department of public diplomacy and said on her LinkedIn profile that she was passionate about Israeli-Palestinian peace-building. She had worked as a Jewish educator.
“Her energy, thoughtfulness, and unwavering belief in dialogue, peace, and equality inspired everyone who had the privilege to work alongside her,” said a statement by Tech2Peace, an organization that Milgrim had worked at that brings together Palestinians and Israelis through tech.
There is no justification for murdering these young people. You can say that they worked for Israel, but they were not combatants. I talked to Malgorzata this morning, and she thinks this murder is a harbinger of violence to come; that it somehow will justify copycat murders of Jews in other places. That is what “globalizing the intifada” really means.
I hope Malgorzata is wrong, but I wouldn’t place money on it. One thing for sure is that this killing will do nothing to “free Palestine”. What Gaza needs to be freed from is Hamas.
Here’s an uncredited picture of the murdered pair from Tom Gross’s newsletter. What makes this even sadder is that in a week Yaron would have proposed to Sarah in Jerusalem, and now they will never be a married couple.
The crime is being investigated as a hate crime, supported by the new finding that someone with the same name as the suspect left a long (900-word) anti)-Israel manifesto online. I can’t find the manifesto online, but here’s part of a summary:
The approximately 900-word statement — written in the clear language of an English major, dated May 20 and published online around the same time the shooting occurred — mentions the high death toll in Gaza and notes the ineffectiveness of nonviolent protests against Israel, including the self-immolation of US Air Force serviceman Aaron Bushnell. It also expresses dissatisfaction with American support for Israel.
Words fail me. Those two young lovers snuffed out by evil and madness.
This is sickening. Two beautiful lights to the nations snuffed out by irrational hatred.
I note the precision of the political strategy to match the image of the horrible violence visited upon wedding parties in regions of the middle east. I think everyone is aware of this horrible fact. At least this is what immediately occurred to me. To the murderer, this needs to happen on U.S. soil to awaken our consciousness.
Politically, this is driven by dialectic – intentional conflict as the means of Historical progression, played out by its Historical agents of change.
IOW it is the opposite of random violence, and is exceptionally dehumanizing. Wretched of the Earth (Frantz Fanon, 1961) comes to mind as some theory which might support this.
I understand the emotional potency of such news, and this is a way of grappling with it that seems to help me – I’m sure if I were in the families it’d be entirely different – sorry if it comes across the wrong way.
Wasn’t long ago that the likes of Elias Rodriguez were being defended and celebrated over at FreeThoughtBlogs and Pharyngula, when Luigi Mangione was arrested. They’re all “globalise the intifada”, and this is what globalising the intifada looks like.
Despite this obvious but predictable horror I think it is better now for Jews over the past few years. Last night is an example of the savagery.
The post Oct 7 madness and continuing chaos have taught the world the type of forces Israel and Jews are up against: this kind of shit. This and the moral gutter of the Free Palestine terrorist movement opened a lot of eyes of people who previously didn’t think much beyond “Palestinians oppressed” default nonsense. Look at how after the regular violent demos much of Western Europe has cottoned onto and rejected large scale Muslim immigration.
WEIT and my column in our small ways, and larger voices have to keep teaching.
D.A.
NYC
Yes. You keép téaching and the extremists will keep killing and eventually more people will see past the bullshit. You often end your comments with “onward Israeli soldiers” and I would think, in the past, well maybe that’s going a little too far. It’s not. These two young people were trying to bridge divides (like those at the Nova festival).it is good what these young people aspire towards, but they need the Israeli military to be able to achieve it. To deny this helps no one except Hamas and criminals like them.
Edit:I saw you ended with heroes instead of soldiers, but the world needs both.
I’m not convinced that the security and well-being of Jews is better now, but certainly awareness of the scourge of antisemitism is better now. One can only hope that our better angels respond by helping the world condemn and end this two-thousand old injustice. Sadly, the lesson of the Shoah (Holocaust) is fading, and so we find ourselves again enduring the world’s oldest hatred. Will newfound awareness finally lead to the permanent eradication of Jew hatred? Hope springs eternal, as it must.
As Gregg Popovich observed, nearly a decade ago, ‘We are Rome.’ And Rome is burning, right there in the capital of the U.S.A, Washington, District of Columbia. Yes, and our equivalent of Nero is indeed fiddling.
And don’t dismiss the plausibility that a beleaguered Leader might issue his own Nero Decree. For those unaware of the original, I encourage you to look it up.
Heartbreaking. It seems that we didn’t mean it when we said “never again”.
I bet that the murderer couldn’t even point out Gaza on a map.
Joolz, I don’t know who “we” is, but Jews absolutely do mean it when they say “Never again.” It’s because so much of the rest of the world doesn’t mean it that Jews have to mean it. They, and Israel as a state, just can’t count on the rest of the world, even their allies. That why Zionism is.
I know I probably misconstrued what you said, being heartbroken too. But “Never again” must live in meaning and action. It won’t be undone by even targeted anti-Semitic murder.
By ‘we’ I meant (most of) the world. After WWII we said ‘never again’ to the holocaust, but here we see people being murdered again simply for being Jewish.
It is possible to detest the actions on both sides in this conflict. I do. Both sides have done heinous things, but the most horrific thing of all is that the rest of the world is not only standing by and letting it happen, but it is actively funding each side.
Sick. My heart breaks for this beautiful couple, their families, friends, and coworkers.
So very sad. May their memories be a blessing.
Yes, may their memories be a blessing. I came to WEIT last night immediately upon hearing about this knowing so many of the readers here are Jewish and actually care about Israel unlike the majority of popular blogs and mainstream news outlets (not to equate WEIT with MSN). This broke right after I’d finished listening to Dan Senor’s “State of World Jewry” at the 92NY (from May 13). As others said, so heartbreaking for their friends and family. I hope such targeted evil will not grow but it really is becoming a trend (such a cheap word to use when talking about human life — forgive me) for a particular cohort in our population. They can’t scream loud enough and keep raising the ante (as Rich mentioned earlier) a la Luigi Mangione. I’m very interested to know how a recent discussion went (I believe it was also held at 92NY) about whether Donald Trump is good or bad for American Jewry. My concern has been/is that the intense hatred many feel towards him will add fuel to the fire as he continues to use antisemitism as his rallying cry. Setting aside what I perceive to be his lack of genuineness, I don’t think you could create a hotter fire: Trump hatred + Israel hatred. What a tinderbox. Take care everyone.
Thanks for the Dan Senor May 13 reference, Debi. Did not know about it. Hopefully I can find it online this afternoon.
Go to https://arkmedia.org
All his podcasts are there as is his speech at the Y. There’s also an afterward with Dan Senor and Rabbi David Ingber
I was not impressed by AOC’s response. She condemned the crime, but added a generic comment about hate not being acceptable. I believe it implied that all types of hatred are equally bad and that anti-Jewish hatred is not a dangerous crisis in the US.
Dialecticians use conflict to advance their own political operation.
“No comment for now…” running away terrorist Ilhan Omar says this morning.
Ilhan Omar who – current thinking goes – married her brother in pursuance of immigration fraud.
“River to Sea” “I represent Somalia not the US” Omar.
Fine bunch of politicians (we?) Dems have got, eh?
HT – my friend Robert Spencer (Jihadwatch.org)
https://x.com/BuzzPatterson/status/1925552825813315647
Onwards Israeli heroes.
D.A.
NYC
David, this might be of interest to you (I recommend it after having read it myself – though it is long. But you have the attention span – and possibly the time):
The rise, fall and contested future of Hizbullah. 1843 Magazine (of The Economist), May 16, 2025
Lebanon has spent years under the militant group’s dominance. Could it be coming to an end?
https://archive.ph/D0sV5
David, the other day you asked “Why (Western) state TV broadcasters are so hard left in their outlook?”
I gave an answer (though I was not sure whether your query wasn’t a rhetorical question). I don’t know whether you saw my response:
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2025/05/17/saturday-hili-dialogue-532/#comment-2142043
Thanks Peter, I’ll read momentarily.
cheers,
D.A.
NYC
I didn’t see your response the other night. Now I have – thank you.
I’ll click on them also. I’m a big fan of Mussa Al Gharbi and Hx Academy and those guys. Mussa had a talk at the Stanford conference the boss was at last year and I’ve been following him ever since.
Great conference that.
I’ve read Greg L. and Riki S.’s book awhile ago – it is excellent.
THIS is new to me though:
Robert Maranto: Class Struggle: How the Media Became the Ivory Tower. Academic Questions, Spring 2023
https://www.nas.org/academic-questions/36/1/class-struggle-how-the-media-became-the-ivory-tower
I’ll get to that. This whole topic interests me. I feel we’ve seen more change in the last decade than the 60s.
Best Peter,
D.A.
NYC
My most sincere sympathy, Mr Coyne. I am horrified and disgusted by this hate crime/murder/antisemitism. I am so sad for the families of these two beautiful people. Furthermore, I am also disgusted because I can hear, in my head, people saying that the conflict in Gaza, the number of Palestinians dead, etc. I remember telling these people, some of them close friends, so what ? I can imagine them saying the same thing again and me asking them what these two people had to do with the war ? In Montreal, shots were fired at a school. A school ! I feel sick to my stomach.
What terrible news. I fear Malgorzata’s prediction will likely come true.
Thank you for doing this as a separate post this morning, Jerry. I continue to be without words since Oct 7 but will just thank D.A., Norman, Joolz, Jez, Leslie, and of course Malgorzata for their thoughts.
This is heartbreaking.
Sympathies to this beautiful couple’s family and friends. The barbarians are at the gates, and we need to repel them.
I am heartsick and also enraged. The loss of two bright, young, commited lives- people working to make the world a better place- at the hand of a Jew hater is unspeakable.
If the end game is world sympathy and condemnation of Israel, he’s picked a strange method to achieve that. Honor Culture mentality in what is still a Culture of Dignity.
I just saw a post from the indefatigable truth-seeker, Ritchie Torres, in which he quotes a clearly misnomered group, Bronx Anti-War coalition, “what Elias Rodriguez did is the highest expression of anti-Zionism.” Frightening to comprehend, they meant this approvingly. So much hate hiding as social justice that they can approve of the murder of two innocent young people.
Ritchie Torres was/is condemning the group. His exact words on X are
“The Bronx Anti-War coalition, which has been targeting me since October 7th, has described the murderous targeting of Jews as “the highest expression of anti-Zionism.”
Violence is not a bug but a feature of virulent Anti-Zionism.”
Heartbreaking. I’m so tired of the “free Palestine” crowd—they’re all about hating Israel and Jews.
Heartbroken.
No words.
More info about the victims:
They Were Days From Getting Engaged. Then They Were Killed in D.C. New York Times, May 22, 2025
Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky met while working at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, her father said. Mr. Lischinsky had just bought an engagement ring, an official said.
https://archive.ph/b2wzs
The killer should get the death penalty. This was pre-meditated cold-blooded murder of 2 people – there is no possibility for judicial error here.
I hope the US and other rich country stop importing Arabs filled with hate for judaism, and expel immigrants (no matter their immigration status) who try to spread antisemitism. Though I do not expect any help with such legislation from parties left of center, unfortunately.
Right. ALL the death and suffering in Gaza and other Islamist controlled shitholes around the world is down to Islamism, as is the current tsunami of Jew-hatred sweeping the world. Reasonable people of all identities need to hammer away at the rather obvious facts that Islamists murder more Muslims around the world by orders of magnitude than the IDF unintentionally kills in their essential project of eliminating HAMAS and that Muslims living peaceful, productive lives in Israel have far better lives, more freedom and human rights than anyone living in Islamist influenced shitholes except for the handful of Imams who are oppressing everyone else there.
A secular amen to that.