Protesters have chanted “Globalize the intifada!” and “There is only one solution, intifada revolution!” across U.S. college campuses and city streets since Israel began defending itself after the October 7 terrorist attacks. Radical activists have used these dark slogans not just as a chant, but as a literal call to action. It is time for Americans to face the true threat posed by radicalized progressives.
The tragic murder of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, two Israeli Embassy staffers, outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday evening underscores this new reality. The shooter, a pro-Palestinian activist tied to the communist Party for Socialism and Liberation, shouted “Free, free Palestine!” — another phrase ubiquitous at anti-Israel demonstrations — as police escorted him away. He later told them he “did it for Gaza.”
This horrific act is the culmination of a broader radicalization of younger Americans, particularly on university campuses, where militant ideologies have long festered. Anti-Israel activists frame calls to “globalize the intifada” and other aspects of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement as resistance to Israel’s “oppressive” actions against Palestinians.
The movement, often cloaked in academic jargon, draws energy from campus environments that increasingly tolerate or even endorse anti-Israel and anti-Semitic ideas. Radicalized universities such as Harvard and Columbia have attempted to address this ideological plague on their campuses, but administrators and faculty must sustain deradicalization efforts over the years.
Prominent Democrats, such as Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), legitimize these movements through public criticisms of Israel’s actions in Gaza without referencing Hamas’s role, perpetuating the idea that Israel and Israel alone are responsible for the suffering of innocents in the conflict. Tlaib has frequently attended pro-Palestinian events where protesters commonly chant “from the river to the sea,” which is nothing less than a call for the destruction of Israel.
On Wednesday afternoon, mere hours before the shooting, Ocasio-Cortez made a statement decrying the “humanitarian crisis” in Gaza, imploring Israel to remove its blockade on food and humanitarian assistance without mentioning Hamas’ role in stealing the aid and using it to control the Palestinian people. Nor did she mention Hamas’ role in perpetuating the conflict by refusing to hand over the hostages they took on Oct. 7. Missing key context and framing Israel as a moral monster emboldens activists to use violence to achieve their aims. It’s no surprise that a radicalized young progressive, steeped in such propagandistic framing of the conflict in Gaza, took matters into his own hands. To be sure, there is blood here on more hands than his.
The shooting follows a disturbing pattern of normalizing and even celebrating political violence on the progressive left in recent years. Left-wing activists hailed Luis Mangione, the young progressive who hunted down and assassinated UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City in December, as a folk hero. Mangione summed up his motive in a letter to federal agents, writing, “Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming. A reminder: the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy.”
For his efforts, Mangione became enormously popular among young progressives, with the hashtag #freeluigi going viral and public opinion polls finding young people empathizing with him more than the victim and his family.
Mangione’s supporters showed such strong public support that he even took the time to thank them during a hearing in February, stating that “the support has transcended political, racial, and even class divisions.”
By celebrating people like Mangione and ignoring Hamas’s terrorism, the Left has effectively normalized using violence as a means to a political end. We urge Americans to take the progressive radicals at their word. When they say they are going to use violence, we should believe them.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
