OPINION: The murder of this young couple is what globalising the intifada means
We will not stop fighting antisemitism in all its insidious manifestations, writes Jonathan Harounoff
Yaron Lischinsky, a promising researcher at Israel’s Embassy in Washington, D.C, had exciting plans for next week.
Born in Israel and raised in Germany, the 30-year-old was the son of a Jewish father and Christian mother, maintaining a strong connection to the people and land of Israel.
Having just purchased an engagement ring, he planned to propose to his girlfriend, Kansas-born Sarah Milgrim, next week in Jerusalem after meeting her family there for the first time. Sarah’s parents had no idea Yaron was about to propose.
Instead, a funeral looms after the beautiful young couple was gunned down on Wednesday evening outside a young Jewish professionals’ event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington D.C. for the crime of being among Jews.
In stark contrast to the attacker’s unconscionable violence, the event Sarah and Yaron attended, organised by the American Jewish Committee, was for aspiring young diplomats interested in peace, “fostering unity and celebrating Jewish heritage.”
Like clockwork, declarations of sympathy and shock saturated social media feeds
and television screens by politicians from across the political spectrum. Yet some of those very same individuals have also spent the past 600 days peddling nonstop lies about Israel, the Israeli people and the IDF – who have been plunged into a defensive war they did not start, fighting against a genocidal terrorist organisation that perpetrated the deadliest massacre in Israel’s history.
When one is engaged in the incessant demonisation of a nation fighting for survival, as is often the case at the United Nations, they run the risk not just of propagating hatred and intolerance, but licensing violence.
Elias Rodriguez, the 30-year-old suspected terrorist behind this slaughter, who was affiliated with a US-based Marxist group that lionises Hamas, shouted “free Palestine” on Wednesday evening as he was detained. He did so not as a cry for liberty, but as a clarion call for murder.
This depraved act of domestic terrorism also did not occur in a vacuum, nor was it an isolated outburst of violence. This past December, the FBI arrested a Virginia-based student for attempting a mass casualty attack on the Israeli consulate in New York.
Wednesday’s senseless act of violence is a painful reminder that there are very real consequences to murderous chants we have heard on our streets and college campuses, including “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “There is only one solution: intifada revolution”.
It is an unfortunate, terrifying reality that when antisemitic, anti-American movements repeatedly chant in support of “resistance by any means,” lunatics will heed those calls and innocent people will die. When antisemitism and anti-Israel incitement reach extreme heights, violence unfortunately follows. These are the same vile chants we heard in the aftermath of October 7, the deadliest day in Israel’s history.
We mourn this loss of life and our thoughts and prayers are with Yaron and Sharon’s families and loved ones.
While we are scarred and shaken, we will not stop fighting antisemitism in all its insidious manifestations. Terrorism will not deter us, and no violent organisation or individual seeking to “globalise the intifada” will stop us from proudly representing the State of Israel in the United States or anywhere else in the world.
- Jonathan Harounoff, Israel’s international spokesperson to the United Nations, is the forthcoming author of “Unveiled: Inside Iran’s #WomanLifeFreedom Revolt”
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