The Pogrom Has Arrived

    I trust everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. And while there is nothing like a 3-day weekend, filled with family, friends, burgers, and hot dogs, I trust you also remembered the fallen. And with that remembrance, you fulfill your duty to Carry The Fire. Because you must always remember the ancient Jewish saying, “You are not required to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.” And remembering is part of the work. Which brings me to, I’m sorry to say, returning to the world so much with us. Since no sooner did I offer a piece about Kanye West and his march to Nazism, did the no longer unthinkable happen in Washington, DC.

    Two Israeli embassy staffers were gunned down in the prime of their lives last Wednesday. Young lovers shot to death for the ‘crime’ of taking pride in their Jewish heritage. He had bought a ring before the occasion and was planning to propose to her the following week in Jerusalem, the capital of the Jewish people’s homeland. We need to speak frankly about the vile slaying of Sarah Lynn Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky in Washington, DC last week. It was an act of anti-Semitic/racist savagery that speaks to the anti-civilizational delirium that pumps in the veins of Israelophobia. It was the pogrom come to Washington.

    Ms. Milgrim and Mr. Lischinsky were staff members at the Israeli Embassy in DC. They were shot dead as they left the event at the Capital Jewish Museum. It was a cocktail-fuelled reception for “young diplomats” aimed at fostering unity and celebrating Jewish heritage. “Free Palestine,” the killer hollered as he put bullets into the embassy staffers. “Globalize the intifada,” the drones of the Israelophobic mob have been shouting since Hamas’s pogrom of October 7, 2023. Well, here it is ladies and gentlemen, being globalized right before our eyes: Hamas-style savagery in the beating heart of the Western world.

    America’s politicians, for once, are not mincing their words. This was a “deadly act of anti-Semitic violence,” said Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives. It’s hard to see what else it could be. If you lurk with a gun outside an event at a Jewish museum devoted to celebrating Jewish heritage, and callously butcher those who come out, it’s pretty clear what your motives are. That the suspect was allegedly wearing a keffiyeh and yelling about Gaza is not surprising: Jew hate comes all dressed up in the colors of Palestine these days. The fascist imagination loves to disguise itself in faux-progressive talk about Palestine. 

    This abhorrent act is the latest in a string far-left terror attacks that has shaken the nation since the beginning of the year. I believe it 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. This double murder follows the brutal murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Thompson was shot in the back by a young man named Luigi Mangione. Mangione has subsequently been turned into a Messiah-like figure by the Progressive crowd. And let us not forget the attempted murder of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and his family. They escaped unscathed. Well, physically. I cannot imagine what the psychological toll would be when you realize someone tried to burn you and your family to death.

    We await more information about the latest suspect in the DC murder. So far as we know, one man bears responsibility for this savage act: the person who pulled the trigger; a man named Elias Rodriguez, a 30-year-old, of Chicago. As I said above, Rodriguez reportedly said that he “did it for Gaza,” and chanted “free, free Palestine” as he was taken into custody. 

    But it would be wrong, catastrophic in fact, to overlook the context in which this latest crime against the Jewish people unfolded. We cannot close our ears to the mood music in our societies – the screeching surround-sound, as it were – that at the very least makes outrages like this one that much more likely. Why? Because words have consequences. We are living through the most ruthless, most relentless demonization of the Jewish State in the entire 77 years of its existence. And it is hard to see last Wednesday night’s double slaughter as anything other than the militarization of that fashionable spite, the armed wing of a loathing for Israel that long ago crossed the line from political critique into neo-medieval hysteria.

    It is 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 building, and even violence. In major cities, protesters have shut down bridges and other critical infrastructure in acts of what one essayist labeled “civil terrorism.”

    Ours is a world in which the Jewish nation is continually damned as “uniquely murderous.” As “barbarous beyond belief.” As a pox on humanity. As so wicked it deserves violent erasure, “from the river to the sea.” Zionists “don’t deserve to live,” activists say. Jews can fuck off “back to Poland,” agitators cry. Week after week, the self-righteous beat the streets to libel Israel as a baby-killing machine. Just last week we were told – falsely – that this most blood-lusting state would gleefully oversee the death by starvation of 14,000 babies in 48 hours. Can we really be surprised if in the midst of such hysteria, in the frenzy of these daily defamations, some come to see Israel’s diplomats as demonic and deserving of the ultimate punishment?

    An undertone, and very often an overtone, of threat and menace attends today’s orgies of Israelophobia. Activists praise Hamas’s acts of ‘resistance’, essentially dressing up neo-fascism as national liberation. People make excuses for the slaughter of October 7th. Some called it a “day of celebration.” Cosplaying as Palestinian militants has become all the rage on many American campuses. “Intifada until victory!” radicals cried in the aftermath of an ‘intifada’ that entailed the rape and murder of hundreds of Jews. Can we really be surprised if in the swirl of such savage urges, in this storm of praise for a pogrom, someone decides to become a one-man ‘intifada’? To bring home to our nation’s capitol some of that “glorious resistance” against the demonic Zionist entity?

    This is not to say that the activists and commentators who’ve been defaming Israel and suicidally cozying up to Islamism bear responsibility for last week’s gross crime. They might be lowlife, piece of shit human beings, but they have not killed anyone. It is essential to liberty that we conscientiously hold fast to the distinction between words and actions. And yet it would be a gross act of disingenuousness to ignore the culture of intolerance and outright bigotry that has been stirred up by the myopic animus for the world’s only Jewish nation. Words have consequences. Overlooking the cultural setting to last week’s barbarism would be as wrongheaded as ignoring the architecture of hate in which young Emmett Till’s life was extinguished back in 1955. Unhinged hatreds birth unhinged behavior.

    Indeed, this act of violence does not stand alone. Since Hamas’ pogrom we have seen synagogues in the West attacked, Jews’ homes vandalized, Jewish students roughed up. Anti-Semitic abuse and assaults have spiked. It seems to me that what happened in DC was not a break from the post-October 7th moment but a continuation of it, a raising of it to a grim new level, an intensification of the sheer unreason and anti-intellectual hatred that has been unleashed these past 18 months. It is nihilism of the highest order. What the murders reveal is the moral emptiness of the anti-Israel cause. Elias Rodriguez is not a brave freedom fighter; there was no justice in his actions. Just like the actions of Balmer, Mangione, and every other petty terrorist before or after them. This is the globalization of Hamas’ pogrom, a murderous assault not only on Jewish citizens and Israeli embassy staffers but also on Western Civilization itself. And these acts have no place in a civilized society. If these fascistic killings and attacks do not open people’s eyes to the moral crisis of our time, I fear nothing will.

Write to Peter: magtour@icloud.com