This is what ‘globalize the intifada’ looks like

OPINION:

Two young people, Israeli Embassy employees in the prime of life, were killed in a brazen terrorist attack in Washington, and there’s a lot of blame to go around. Press, policymakers and podcasters, among others, have demonized the Jewish state. Many have repackaged the age-old blood libel, depicting Israel as uniquely evil. Violence was, and is, the inevitable outcome of their lies.

Indeed, violence is what many of them want. For those who are willing to listen, they even say as much.

On Wednesday night, two Israeli Embassy staff members were shot outside the Capital Jewish Museum during a Young Diplomats Reception hosted by the American Jewish Committee. Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim were about to embark on a life together. Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter said Mr. Lischinsky, an Israeli Christian who was part of the embassy’s public diplomacy team, had recently bought an engagement ring.

The American Jewish Committee event was dedicated to humanitarian service. The theme was “Turning Pain Into Purpose.” Mr. Lischinsky and Ms. Milgrim had devoted their young lives to peace. A Jewish News Service report said Ms. Milgrim had spent time in Israel “researching the role of friendships in peacebuilding for her master’s project.”

The alleged shooter, a 30-year-old Chicago man named Elias Rodriguez, reportedly chanted “Free, free Palestine” as he was taken into custody. Eyewitness Paige Siegel said Mr. Rodriguez shouted, “I did it, I did it. Free Palestine. I did it for Gaza,” before removing a red keffiyeh from a backpack.

The meaning has never been clearer: “Freeing Palestine” means killing Jews or those who believe in the Jewish state’s right to exist.

A social media account linked to Mr. Rodriguez shows he frequently retweeted Hassan Nasrallah, the longtime head of the terrorist group Hezbollah, who was killed in an Israeli strike in September.

Hezbollah, like its benefactor Iran and other Iranian proxies, calls for Israel’s destruction and another genocide of Jews. In another post, Mr. Rodriguez tweeted, “Don’t blame me, I voted for Hamas.” Mr. Rodriguez was also a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, a far-left extremist group funded by Neville Singham, who also finances the pro-Iran, pro-Chinese Communist Party group Code Pink.

A manifesto allegedly written by Mr. Rodriguez accuses Israel of perpetrating a “genocide.” To bolster his case, Mr. Rodriguez cited casualty statistics supplied by the “Gaza Health Ministry,” which is controlled by Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group with a clear incentive to inflate casualty statistics and a long track record of doing just that. Mr. Rodriguez calls for “bringing the war home” and claims “there are many Americans for which the action will be highly legible and, in some funny way, the only sane thing to do.”

The war Mr. Rodriguez wants to “bring home” is a war to destroy the Jewish state and, as the attack in Washington reveals, kill Jews and supporters of Israel far from that tiny nation’s shores. The war is waged by Iran and its proxies and also a coalition of academics and student radicals. It is emboldened by legacy media outlets, certain policymakers and even mainstream podcasters.

An assortment of antisemites and their enablers helped bring us to the point where a young couple had their lives brutally snuffed out on the streets of an American city to “free Palestine.” The alleged shooter’s rhetoric is hardly original.

In college classrooms and the halls of Congress, academics and extremist lawmakers have accused Israel of “genocide.” Calls to “globalize the intifada” have become commonplace on city streets. There is nothing ambiguous about what any of this means.

The first Palestinian “intifada,” during the 1930s, was led by Amin al-Husseini, the founding father of Palestinian nationalism. He was a future Nazi collaborator who was gifted with fascist funds to kill Jews and British officials in British-ruled Mandate for Palestine. The most recent and perhaps most infamous intifada occurred from 2000 to 2005, when Palestinian terrorists killed more than 1,000 Israeli civilians. The meaning of intifada is undeniable. Those who invoke it know exactly what they are doing, and we must take them at their word.

If there were ever any doubt about their intentions, it should be gone now.

Yet it takes a certain environment for such hate to thrive. Mr. Rodriguez isn’t the only one to serve as a mouthpiece for Hamas. The Washington Post, NPR and numerous other legacy media outlets have echoed Hamas claims, including casualty statistics and charges of an Israeli “genocide.” In so doing, they have helped mainstream antisemitism, with predictable results.

Indeed, on the day of his death, one of Mr. Lischinsky’s last posts on social media was to decry a United Nations assertion, breathlessly repeated and later deleted by NBC and others, that Israel would kill 14,000 babies in the Gaza Strip in two days — a “blood libel,” as Israeli Ambassador Amir Weissbrod noted. Fresh from a trip to Qatar, podcaster Theo Von echoed the U.N. charge and received no fewer than 18 million views. It was a lie, another instance of international institutions and media outlets treating a terrorist group as a trustworthy source. All lies have believers, and some are more willing than others.

“Jews and non-Jews who wish them well believe the Holocaust ended in 1945,” Eric Rozenman wrote in his prescient 2018 book, “Jews Make the Best Demons.” “But if the Holocaust began with ideas and words, only ending in roundups and gas chambers, then more to the point it was interrupted until it could be resumed with ideas and words.”

The consequences of those ideas and words are crystal clear.

• The writer is a senior research analyst for the 65,000-member, Boston-based Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis.