Three Wall Street Journal articles about the terrorist murders of Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky connected the shooting and rising antisemitism around the world to the war in Gaza, but fail to make clear how that war started, subtly implying that Israel bears at least some responsibility for their deaths.
Last week, on May 21, the two Israeli Embassy staffers were shot and killed outside of an event at the Capital Jewish Museum by a gunman from Chicago. As police took him into custody, the alleged killer shouted, “Free, free Palestine!” – the same chant that has echoed through anti-Israel marches in cities and on college campuses since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
After giving the details of the shooting and quoting American and Israeli government officials, an article by Sadie Gurman, Meridith McGraw and Olivia Beavers (“Israeli Embassy Staffers Killed in Shooting Outside Jewish Museum in Washington,” May 22) relayed that,
A number of surveys have documented a steep rise in antisemitism around the globe, including violent offenses, that has worsened with the war in Gaza and the 2023 Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel.
The European Union’s executive body reported in October that the conflicts in the Middle East had pushed antisemitism to unprecedented levels. In November, Israeli soccer fans were chased and beaten by crowds in the Netherlands, with a prosecutor saying the unrest was triggered by the situation in Gaza.
Israel has faced anger over its renewed offensive in the Gaza Strip in which tens of thousands have been killed, and its nearly three-month moratorium on food supplies entering the enclave.
The article reverses the order of events in Israel – in the Journal’s reporting, the “war in Gaza” somehow precedes the “2023 Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel,” and no causative link is made between the two. Antisemitism, readers then learn, is pushed to “unprecedented levels” by “conflicts in the Middle East,” and there is anger over Israel’s “renewed offensive in the Gaza Strip.” The actual cause of the war – an attack on Israel in which 1200 men, women, and children were tortured, raped, burned alive and murdered, and 250 hostages were taken back to Gaza, many of whom were also murdered, others starved and tortured in dungeons – is obscured for the reader.
Another article, dated the same day, which reported on the incident from an Israeli perspective, by Anat Peled and Dov Lieber, (“Killing of Embassy Staffers Stokes Israeli Fears of Increasingly Hostile World,” May 22), includes in the “Key Points,” that “The shooting follows rising antisemitism and a hostile environment for Israelis abroad since the start of the Gaza war.” In the text, this point is made several times:
- “Israelis woke up Thursday to the killing of two Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington, D.C., reinforcing a fear that the world has become increasingly dangerous for Israelis and Jews amid the war in Gaza and a global rise in antisemitism.”
- “The shooting comes amid rising levels of antisemitism worldwide and what many feel is a hostile environment for Israelis abroad since the start of the war in Gaza.”
- “Violent attacks targeting Israelis and Jews have increased around the world in the past 19 months. Israeli soccer fans were attacked in Amsterdam in November 2024 after calls for a “Jew hunt.” A Chabad rabbi in Dubai was kidnapped and killed later that month, shocking the small Jewish community in the United Arab Emirates. In France, a Jewish man wearing a skullcap was violently beaten in front of a synagogue in March 2024 after being told he was ‘killing people in Gaza.’”
- “The killings [of Milgrim and Lischinsky] come as Israel contends with growing foreign opposition to Netanyahu’s expansion of the Gaza war. Israel recently launched a new offensive in Gaza after a more than two-month-long blockade on the enclave with Netanyahu announcing that Israel would take over all areas in the strip.”
-
“Some of Israel’s closest allies, such as the U.S., U.K. and France, have urged the prime minister to end the war. The U.K., France and Canada this week threatened consequences if the offensive continued.”
- “Even in Israel, opposition to the war is growing.”
- “Yuval Harel, 31, from Jaffa, said that she was scared for own safety after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, and tells people she is from Portugal when she travels abroad. But now she has also come to oppose the war on moral grounds, angered by the toll it is taking on Palestinians in Gaza, particularly children. ‘I’m embarrassed and afraid,’ she said.”
There is a “war in Gaza,” there is “Netanyahu’s expansion” of the war, a “new offensive” by Israel in the war and a “more than two-month-long blockade.” The October 7 attack is mentioned, but only in the context of an Israeli who is “embarrassed and afraid” of the “the toll [the war] is taking on Palestinians in Gaza, particularly children.” Again, the article fails to mention the brutality of the October 7 attack or clearly state that was the cause of the war.
And a third article, “D.C. Shooting Alarms Jewish Groups Already Hit by Rising Antisemitism,” by Douglas Belkin and Kris Maher, also dated May 22, said in the “Key Points,” that “synagogues and Jewish centers are facing rising antisemitism fueled by the Gaza war.” The text relays that “news of the deaths [of Milgrim and Lischinsky] rippled through synagogues and Jewish community centers already facing a sharp rise in antisemitism fueled by the war in Gaza.” The article further stated, “the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s offices were spray-painted last July with a message saying the organization ‘funds genocide.’” Here, the cause of the war was omitted completely.
The impression created in all three articles is that Israel’s aggression in Gaza has caused hostility to Jews around the world, including Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky. But the reality is that Israel is fighting a war of self-defense, and the barbaric Hamas attack on Israel not only caused the war, but also sent out a signal to those around the world who already hated Jews. It emboldened them to act on that hatred – to, in their own parlance, “Globalize the Intifada”– as the alleged shooter at the Jewish Museum did. The Wall Street’s Journal’s reporting, like so much else, inverts cause and effect to blame Israel for attacks on Jews around the world.