Steps to Prevent the Next Antisemitic Attack?

After the murder of two young Israeli embassy staff members in Washington, D.C. at the Jewish Museum, the condemnations (sincere and insincere) from domestic and foreign governments and various NGOs are rolling in, along with the obligatory statements that “antisemitism has no place . . . (pick your geographic location).” Security is being enhanced, we are advised, at Jewish institutions – as if Jews around the world, including here in the U.S., don’t already live in armed camps surrounded by locked doors, security surveillance cameras, X-ray machines, and weapons-bearing guards who confirm identities before one can enter their synagogues and other Jewish locations.

It is the rare occasion when my work on two such disparate areas such as antisemitism/hate speech and gun control dovetails so completely. For, as this excellent Times of Israel blog article (“The murders outside the museum were foreseeable: That’s the problem”) by a non-Jewish, non-Israeli author so well points out: “This attack is not just a national tragedy. It is a strategic warning. . . This moment requires more than condemnation. It demands a recalibrated approach to countering extremism, one that acknowledges how antisemitism functions as both an ideological catalyst and a tactical vector for violence.”

And indeed it does. It is time – indeed past time – that we act to prevent the next attack. Nothing we do will prevent all attacks like this as a truly resolute murderer will find a way, but we can and must take steps now to create barriers to those so motivated. Saving even one life is saving the world.

We start with a few basics:

– Hate speech is not protected by the First Amendment. See here (beginning at p. 19), here (“The Intersection of Hate Speech and the First Amendment”) and here (“Defining Hate Speech”).

– Red flag laws and other similar provisions that allow removal of certain freedoms (such as owning or possessing guns) where a person has demonstrated that he or she is a danger to the community are constitutional. And hardening potential risk sites (like schools or synagogues), while helpful, is not a sufficient preventative measure since a “good guy with a gun” rarely is able to act fast enough to avoid tragedy.

The issue, of course, is not limited to antisemitic violence such as we have just experienced. It applies equally to all forms of radicalization, such as the one that resulted in the similar point-blank murder of the CEO of United Healthcare in December 2024. Nonetheless, the current environment involving antisemitism and anti-Zionism is one that requires action to prevent future tragedies – action that is fully within constitutional parameters.

So, what can we do to prevent the next attack? We must act against those who spread hate and increase radicalization. These steps are all subject to due process, but due process after action has been taken; the clear and present danger presented by hate requires immediate steps. If those impacted can meet their burden of proving that their speech or conduct did not qualify, they can be reinstated and compensated for their loss.

– If a university-affiliated organization engages in hate speech, blocks access to university buildings and areas (such as “liberated zones” in campus encampments), takes over a campus library, or vandalizes campus or other property, it must be banned from campus and all other university-affiliated activities, including websites. This also applies to university departments (such as the department of Middle Eastern Studies) and larger associations (such as the AAUP).

– Individuals, including professors, who engage in or support such activity must be expelled or fired. This is not “academic freedom” under any rational meaning of the phrase. This applies equally to tenured faculty – if a professor expresses his or her “exhilaration” at the murder of 1,200 civilian Israelis and the kidnapping and torture of more, that professor must be told to immediately pack up his office and leave. If it is a student, expulsion should be required. If it is a foreign student, appropriate due process proceedings to revoke the right to remain in the U.S. should be instituted.

– This applies to curriculum as well. Classes that teach one-sided anti-Israel narratives must be deleted from the schedule.

– Hate speech must be removed from social media and other posts. If it qualifies as hate speech, it is not protected as free speech or by academic freedom. These sites are among the primary locations where people like the D.C. murderer become radicalized. If a website traffics in hate speech, it must be removed from such things as Google indexing so that the website cannot be found. Platforms that traffic in or encourage hate and violence are simply not acceptable, period.

– Persons who post hate speech must be included in the national database so that guns cannot be legally obtained by such persons – and if they already have guns, red flag and similar laws should be used to remove them from their possession. Current reporting indicates that the D.C. murderer legally purchased the handgun and packed it in his luggage when he flew from Chicago to D.C. to shoot the victims in the back (and to re-load and continue to shoot when one of them tried to crawl away). His pre-shooting social media posts may or may not have been sufficient to bar his from obtaining or keeping this weapon – but others with similar inclinations have posted items that unquestionably qualify as true threats (as articulated by the Supreme Court in Virginia v. Black) and hate speech – and such persons must and can constitutionally be prevented from possessing weapons.

These steps, and perhaps others like them, will not prevent all such events. But we must act to change the tone of discussion and encourage true dialogue.

None of this prohibits real debate on actions of Israel or its government. The current environment, however, inhibits and even bars debate – as the anti-normalization guidelines of the BDS movement make clear. Those who follow such guidelines are doing the very opposite of what universities are supposed to provide. Many cite Justice Brandeis’s “more speech” solution in Whitney v. California (“If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”), but people like the D.C. murderer and campus protesters are not interested in – and expressly reject – “discussion” and the “process of education” – they believe that they already know all the answers and reject any contrary perspective. And for people like the young couple murdered in D.C., there is “no time” to expose the fallacies and “avert the evil;” the evil was already upon them and all of us. The “more speech” approach is itself a fallacy in such a situation.

Words matter. One can support robust debate and a wide range of legitimate expression of strong and even caustic disagreement – but when it crosses the line into hate speech and destructive conduct, it no longer enjoys any protection, morally or legally. If we want to narrow the opportunities for further murders like the ones we just experienced, platforms and individuals that traffic in hate must be eliminated.

It is time.