One gets the sense from the recent attacks in Washington, D.C. and Boulder, Colo. – shootings and bombings, respectively – that we are on the cusp of a period of ever-spiking numbers and intensity of violent attacks against Jews. And it is already clear that continuing to use “terrorism” to describe them would be to miss and distract from the significance of what is about to happen.
Previous acts of anti-Jewish/anti-Zionist violence since the onset of the Gaza War on Oct. 8, 2023 became the public face of protests against Israel’s reaction to the Oct. 7 massacre. While the perpetrators were bound by a desire to protest, surely they all shared a desire to see Israel disappear – and obviously, they also turned to violence.
So, while we have had our share of apparent hate crimes – the murders at Tree of Life Synagogue, Poway Jersey City and Monsey come immediately to mind – the motivations of the offenders seemed to be more tied to their desires to give vent to their personal animosity towards Jews and/or Israel, rather than to, per se, promote the destruction of the Jewish state.
But this is not so with the alleged perpetrators of the Washington and Colorado attacks. As we see it, they plainly saw themselves as actors in a movement to drive Israel into the sea.
It was not for nothing that they both shouted “Free Palestine” at the time of their attacks which, according to the Times of Israel, even anti-Israel activists concede, means to many, the eradication of Israel. In fact, the phrase “Free Palestine” oftentimes carries the tagline, “by any means necessary.”
And, of course, calls in pro-Palestinian circles for the “globalization of the intifada” have lately become all the rage, and provide an alarming backdrop to the Washington and Colorado attacks.
As we noted here before, perhaps it is time that we rethink our extremist notions of freedom of speech before they drag us all down.
