By Walter Block and Oded J.K. Faran
There were recent deaths concerning Jews in Washington DC and in Gaza.
What occurred in this first incident?
It involved Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, a couple who were soon to be married. They were attending an event for young professionals at the Capital Jewish Museum. It was hosted by the American Jewish Committee. The two Israeli Embassy staff members emerged from the building in which the event was taking place and were shot and killed by a gunman who yelled “Free, Free Palestine.” The suspect is a 31-year-old Chicago native named Elias Rodriguez, a man who has long been involved in left wing causes.
Said Sacha Roytman Dratwa, an Israeli military veteran who is the CEO of the Combat Antisemitism Movement: “The murderer did not know his victims were Israeli, he just knew they attended a Jewish event,” he added. “When we say that the anti-Semites don’t hate Jews because of Israel, but rather, they hate Israel because it is the Jewish homeland, this is what we mean.”
Here, it was clear, Israeli Jews were the clear victims.
At around the same time, about 10,000 miles away, Jews, Israelis, were also involved in killings. This refers to tens of thousands of Gazan deaths, subsequent to the atrocity of October 7, 2023, a day that will forever remembered for infamy.
Many people blame the IDF for these deaths. For example “Amnesty International investigation concludes Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.”
According to Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF): “Palestinian lives are once again being systematically destroyed… A series of deadly attacks by Israeli forces have shown a blatant disregard for the safety of humanitarian and medical workers in Gaza. We call on Israeli authorities to immediately lift the inhumane and deadly siege on Gaza, protect the lives of Palestinians, humanitarian and medical personnel and for all parties to restore and sustain the ceasefire.”
But this is just plain silly. Hamas hides behind women’s skirts. They use civilians as shields. They place munitions and rocket launchers smack dab in the middle of hospitals and schools. These deaths are at their door, not that of the IDF.
I am Hamas, you are Israel. I’m gonna kill you, you Jewish vermin. Hitler made a good start, I readily acknowledge his heroic efforts, but I’m gonna finish the job. So what I do is this. I strap my two year old twins to the front of my body, and then race at you, knife upraised and blood in my eye, yelling “Death to all kikes.” You have your wife, five children and elderly parents hiding behind you. You are a decent person. You do not at all relish killing my two tykes. You have a gun in your hand (indicating that overall, the IDF is more militarily powerful than my Hamasian knife). You wish you could fell me with a head shot, saving my little kiddies. But you are not capable of such marksmanship. The only way you can stop me for sure is with a shot to my chest, killing both me and my two infants.
Now I have two questions for Doctors Without Borders, Amnesty International, and all others who unjustly blame Israel for Gazan deaths. First, do you shoot me and my two kids, or do you allow me to put to death you and your entire family? You opt for the latter? Are you really that suicidal? I think you are lying through your teeth. Well, Israel, thank God, is not.
Second, let us stipulate, arguendo, that you do kill me and my two progeny. Are you a murderer? Or are you engaged in self-defense? Who is responsible for the deaths of my two innocent young civilians? Me, a maniacal attempted murderer, or you with your back at the wall. If you think you are to blame, you are an idiot.
I say to Doctors Without Borders, Amnesty International, and all others who unjustly blame Israel for Gazan deaths: Rethink your entirely unjust, idiotic, moronic position. If all bank guards, body guards, policemen, held your perverse view, all the criminals would have to do would be to use innocents as shields, and they could get away with whatever they wanted to do. It would be open season for crime. Any and all kind of crime.
Is it unfair, unconscionable, that so much ink, and electricity, has been shed on the murders in Washington DC, and so little, relatively speaking on a per capita basis, on those in Gaza? After all, only two people have perished in the nation’s capital, while thousands of Gazans, Houthies, Hamas, Hezbollah, have died in the Middle East.
One explanation, not justification, for this is that the former is only days old, now, while the latter has been going on ever since 2023. “If it bleeds it leads” is one aphorism of journalism. Another might well be “if it’s late, it’s great.”
Another account for this disproportionate coverage, per capita, is that there is a debate going on as to whether anti-Semitism, hatred for Jews, is a phenomenon of the right or of the left. What just happened in DC is a point, two points, for the latter hypothesis.
The most important issue here is that it cements in place the view that an attack on Jews in the Middle East is by no means limited to Israelis. As far as this murderer knew, he was attacking American Jews, not Israelis. As the Hamas Covenant makes clear, it is all Jews, not merely those in the Middle East, who are the targets for mayhem. And this, evidently, goes for their supporters, everywhere, as well.
Pegs:
Deaths Concerning Jews in Washington DC
the IDF is to blame for Gazan deaths
Hamas Covenant. 1988. The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp
Walter E. Block, Ph.D. is the Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair and Professor of Economics at Loyola University, New Orleans.
Oded J.K. Faran holds LL.B. and LL.M. degrees in law from Sha’arei Mishpat College in Israel. He is the General Director of Faran & Co. International Translations Ltd. and lives in Tbilisi, Georgia. He is the author of Jacob’s Ledger, a blog focused on the intersections of economics, law, and geopolitics, aimed at professionals who value clear thinking and grounded analysis.
