The Language of Violence

On Wednesday, May 21, Sarah Milgrim, a 26-year-old American, and Yaron Lischinsky, a 30-year-old Israeli, were brutally shot and killed outside an event hosted by the American Jewish Committee at a Jewish museum in Washington, DC. According to law enforcement, the suspect shouted “Free Palestine” as he was taken into custody. Neither victim was a high-profile political figure. One was Jewish, the other not. Their only apparent connection to the shooter’s rage was that they had attended a Jewish event.

The tragedy that befell Sarah and Yaron remind us that the stakes are not abstract. If we want to live in a society where protest leads to progress, not bloodshed, we must reckon with the power of the words we choose and the ideologies we excuse. We must also insist that those who excuse such ideologies have no place in our society.

The attack was a hate crime, carried out not because of who the victims were, but because of what they were perceived to be. And it was not an isolated act.

In the aftermath of October 7, a wave of protests and demonstrations erupted across the United States. Some were peaceful. But a growing number have been defined not by calls for coexistence or justice, but by language that romanticizes violence. Protesters chant “intifada,” a word inextricably linked to past Palestinian campaigns of civilian-targeted terror. Slogans like “by any means necessary” or “globalize the intifada” are not metaphorical. They are battle cries. They endorse violence as a moral imperative.

At the same time, a pattern has emerged in how Israel is portrayed in media coverage of the war in Gaza. Eyewitness claims, often made in the fog of war, become viral headlines. Civilian casualties, real and tragic, are presented in ways that strip out Hamas’s military entrenchment in civilian infrastructure or the group’s stated goal of eradicating Israel. When the facts later shift, or quietly unravel, the public memory does not. What lingers is a sense of righteous fury and the belief that violence against those perceived as Israeli or Jewish is understandable, even inevitable.

Consider, for example, the most recent furor over the baseless proclamation by UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher, when he stated on May 20 that as many as 14,000 children could die “within 48 hours.” Media outlets eagerly disseminated the headline, initiating an avalanche of social media outrage. The claim was retracted within a day, but the damage was already done. Every Jew was culpable for the genocidal massacre that never came to be. Even those attending an event promoting humanitarian aid for Gazans.

This is not an argument against criticism of Israel. Democratic societies require dissent, especially during war. But when criticism gives way to dehumanization, when rhetoric begins to erase distinctions between governments and civilians, between soldiers and conference attendees, it creates space for something darker to take root.

Language does not pull triggers. But it can lower the threshold. It can frame violence as resistance, strip moral complexity from tragedy, and turn ideology into justification. The murder of Sarah and Yaron was the latest, and perhaps the most chilling, example of what happens when the line between speech and action begins to erode.

It would be a mistake to dismiss this moment as an aberration. It reflects deeper currents: the collapse of moral distinctions in political discourse, the flattening of complex conflicts into binary and diametrically opposed narratives, and the alarming ease with which antisemitism finds new forms and new hosts. Even as the victims’ blood has not yet dried, a vocal and morally depraved segment of our society is showering praise on a murderer in the name of ‘justice’ across social media platforms.

We are not helpless in the face of this. We can demand better from our institutions, including our media, our universities, and our civic leaders. We can insist that movements committed to justice reject violence not only in action, but in word. And we can remember that empathy and precision are not weaknesses in debate—they are its foundation.