Dem
47
GOP
53
There was a lot of news breaking last night, right at the time that we published the day's posting. There was the budget-bill vote, of course, which we added a brief note about, roughly an hour after going live. And there was also the killing of two staffers who work for the Israeli embassy in Washington.
The victims are Sarah Milgrim, who was an American citizen, and Yaron Lischinsky, who was an Israeli national. They were in a romantic relationship and, in fact, Lischinsky had just purchased an engagement ring and was preparing his proposal. They were attending a late-night event at the Jewish Capital Museum when they were approached by a man named Elias Rodriguez, who had been pacing back and forth in front of the museum. He pulled a gun, and fired several shots at both Milgrim and Lischinsky. And at some point thereafter, he pulled a keffiyeh out of a bag and put it on his head, and shouted: "I did it. I did it for Gaza. Free Palestine!" Rodriguez was apprehended, and reportedly has already confessed, including telling authorities where he discarded the gun he used. He has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder.
We pass this story along because there is very little chance it does not become politicized, in some way. There's the current salience of Israel and Palestine, of course. And the crime not only occurred in Washington, DC, but the victims were young and attractive and their pending engagement gives a tragic, Romeo-and-Juliet-star-crossed-lovers dimension to the incident. We do not approve of this dynamic, but we cannot deny that "the story" affects how both politicians and media approach crimes like this.
Indeed, the politicization has already begun, at least tentatively. As part of the Harvard story (see above), there were a couple of Trump administration officials yesterday (e.g., Kristi Noem) who hinted that things like this happen because universities aren't doing enough to combat antisemitism. Meanwhile, Ofir Akunis, the consul general of Israel who serves in New York City, was on Fox, and suggested that Qatar is to blame for the increase in antisemitism in the U.S. in the past few years. That would seem to imply that anyone who makes nice with Qatar, or who does business with Qatar, or who takes free planes from Qatar, is also culpable.
There's an excellent chance that, once the shock of this tragedy has faded a bit, and once it's a tiny bit less crass to share opinions on the subject, there's going to be a lot more of this. Sigh. (Z)