EDITORIAL: Shootings a tragic consequence of anti-Semitism

West Australian

22-05-2025

The two Israeli embassy staffers killed by a gunman in Washington DC had the right to expect to be safe.
They weren't in a war zone. They were at a museum in America's heart of democracy.
The victims, a young couple who planned to get engaged next week on a trip to Israel, were there to attend an event for young diplomats. Speakers at the event included those devoted to humanitarian aid missions across the Middle East and North Africa.
Their killer, Elias Rodriguez, is a 30-year-old from Chicago who has had never been in trouble with the law before, authorities say.
He approached the couple as they left the event with two friends, and opened fire.
After killing the pair, he walked into the museum where he was detained by security.
According to DC police chief Pamela Smith, once in custody, he chanted 'Free, free Palestine'.
What drives a person to murder two strangers? To take the lives of people entirely unknown to him, who had done nothing to him?
Details of Rodriguez' background are scant at this early stage.
But there could be little doubt about his motivations.
US President Donald Trump called the act a 'depraved act of anti-Semitic terrorism'.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin described the deaths as 'horrific anti-Semitic murder'.
'We are witnessing the terrible price of anti-Semitism and wild incitement against the State of Israel,' he said.
'The blood libels against Israel are rising in blood and must be fought to the bitter end.'
These murders will deeply affect the Jewish community — including in Australia.
Australia's Jewish community understands what it's like to have their sense of safety stolen away from them.
Every act of anti-Semitism that has occurred in this country and others since the atrocities of October 7, 2023 have chipped away at it.
These murders will erode it even further.
There are clear differences between Australia and the US. But the frightening reality is that something like this is possible here.
The 'wild incitement' Mr Netanyahu spoke about exist here too and they are destroying our social cohesion and sowing the seeds of violent anti-Semitic hatred.
As Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dvir Abramovich writes in The Nightly today, radicalisation starts with words 'repeated, unchallenged, and unleashed into public life'.
'Before bullets are fired, words are sharpened. And when speech loses its guardrails, when empathy drains out of our discourse, the slide from disagreement to danger becomes disturbingly short.'
We cannot allow ourselves to be pulled further down this path towards hatred and violence.
Jewish Australians' trust in the Government has been tested in the 19 months since the October 7 massacre.
They have watched their Prime Minister and senior ministers urge 'restraint' by Israel in its fight to defend itself and its people against terrorism.
They have watched acts of hatred at home be met with weak platitudes.
Many no longer feel safe in their own communities. Today, they will mourn the deaths of these two young people, and that sense of safety will slip further away.