Israeli embassy aides Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim were murdered Wednesday night in Washington, D.C., gunned down by an anti-Israel radical as they were leaving an American Jewish Committee Young Diplomats reception.
D.C. police charged 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez, of Chicago, for the crime. Rodriguez reportedly said that he “did it for Gaza,” and chanted “free, free Palestine” as he was taken into custody.
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The murder of this young couple—Lischinsky and Milgrim were reportedly soon to be engaged, according to the Israeli ambassador—is the latest in a string of far-left terror attacks that have shaken the nation since the start of the year. The violence reflects both the radicalization of the anti-Israel protest movement and a broader rise in anti-Semitic attacks. More broadly, it is part of a growing wave of nihilistic political violence, justified by extremist ideology and tacitly endorsed by progressives in power.
Just weeks ago, after all, another anti-Israel terrorist, 38-year-old Cody Balmer, allegedly firebombed the residence of Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro. Balmer reportedly targeted Shapiro—arguably the most visibly Jewish political figure in America—because of what he “wants to do to the Palestinian people.”
It’s hard not to see a connection between these crimes—murder and attempted murder, respectively—and the radicalism of the pro-Palestinian protest movement. On campuses across the nation, students have not only peacefully protested but also at times turned to vandalism, rioting, the occupation of buildings, and even violence. In major cities, protesters have shut down bridges and other critical infrastructure in acts of what my Manhattan Institute colleague Tal Fortgang has labeled “civil terrorism.”
Those behind these disruptive, illegal acts justify them by citing the alleged genocide committed by the Israeli government, and many openly support Hamas’s “armed resistance” and its goal of destroying the “Zionist entity.” Some of the most committed radicals see themselves as the Western wing of Hamas—a connection the terrorist group is eager to affirm.
In this context, it’s easy to see how individuals like Rodriguez and Balmer resort to terroristic violence. After all, if everything short of murder is permitted to “free, free Palestine,” why isn’t murder also permissible?
This logic, though, extends beyond the anti-Israel movement. It was the same logic that justified Luigi Mangione’s alleged murder of UnitedHealthcare executive Brian Thompson earlier this year, and that informed the firebombing of Teslas as part of a concerted campaign to oppose Elon Musk. As Christopher Rufo and Dave Reaboi explained in City Journal, the most extreme activists see violence as part of the continuum of approaches called “diversity of tactics,” whereby public protest and overt terrorism are part of a broad spectrum of legitimate methods.
After all, the thinking goes, “the system” is itself violent—whether that means “Amerikkka” or “the Zionist entity.” Vandalism, property damage, and shutting down buildings are barely proportional to the alleged evils of “the system.” And individual violence is not merely justified in response to this state oppression; it is morally mandatory.
Such ideas, as I have written, have deep roots in the Left’s ideological infrastructure. And even today, they receive tacit assent from leaders who, for example, defend Mangione’s murder as understandable, or valorize campus radicals like Mahmoud Khalil as heroes.
This dynamic is apparent in Wednesday’s killings. While Rodriguez doubtless meant to kill Jews, one of his victims, Lischinsky, was a “devout Christian.” The fact that a Christian was murdered in the name of opposing Israel highlights how, for Rodriguez, anti-Semitism is but one vicious part of a comprehensive anti-Western ideology.
What Wednesday’s murders reveal is the moral emptiness of such sentiments. Elias Rodriguez is not a brave freedom fighter; he did not serve justice or righteousness by gunning down two young lovers on the streets of Washington. He is, rather, an anti-civilizational nihilist—like Balmer, Mangione, and every other petty terrorist before or after him.
Such nihilism has no place in a civilized society and should be met with the full force of the law. It also deserves unequivocal public condemnation. Will it get that?
Photo by Tom Brenner For The Washington Post via Getty Images