Moral clarity matters: Leaders must call this what it is

We are horrified, but sadly not surprised, that a man who said he wanted to “kill all Zionist people” threw two incendiary devices into a group of Jews who were peacefully gathering in Boulder, Colorado, in support of the hostages still held by the terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.

As the man attempted to kill as many Jews as he could, he yelled “Free Palestine.”

That’s the same phrase shouted by the man who killed Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky two weeks ago as they exited the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C.

And these terror attacks came just weeks after Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s residence was firebombed by a man who said he did it because of what the governor “wants to do to the Palestinian people.”

Make no mistake: A call to free Palestine “from the river to the sea” — i.e., rid the land of Jewish people — and that urges its followers to “globalize the intifada,” is a call to kill Jews.

As we’ve stressed many times in these pages, while it is not antisemitic to criticize the actions of the Israeli government, it is antisemitic to hold all Jews responsible for those actions. And it is antisemitic to deny the Jewish people a right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland.

Pittsburgh, the site of the most violent antisemitic attack in the history of the United States — perpetrated by a white supremacist — tragically also has its share of Jew hatred coming from the “Free Palestine” movement. Mohamad Hamad, a former member of the Pennsylvania National Guard, who identifies as a “Hamas operative,” and Micaiah Collins, the child of a local Presbyterian pastor and a vocal anti-Israel activist — are awaiting trial on charges that include building bombs with the intent to detonate them.

Jewish buildings here have been defaced. Jews have been verbally harassed in the streets. Jewish university students have been physically assaulted.

These attacks and threats did not arise in a vacuum, but rather can be linked to the reckless and violent rhetoric spewed by Jew haters at campus protests and on Instagram, X and TikTok. They can be linked to the misinformation propagated on those sites and by some media outlets, and then amplified by influencers and politicians who lack moral clarity. They can be linked to the use of the term “Zionist” as a racist slur.

Just last week, a local public official was threatened on a social media app by a man in Elizabeth, Pennsylvania, who wrote: “We’re coming for you … Go back to Israel or better yet, exterminate yourself and save us the trouble.” (See story on Page 7.) The message included Nazi imagery.

In an interview with the Chronicle, the local official targeted by the Elizabeth man urged “progressive champions on the left and conservative champions on the right who can impact public thought on these topics” to use their voices to condemn acts of hate-fueled violence.

We agree. The false accusations against Israel and the vilification of Jews has to stop. And those who refuse to stop must be called out for what they are: hateful antisemites.

We applaud elected leaders like Sens. John Fetterman and Dave McCormick, and Rep. Chris Deluzio, who immediately and unequivocally condemned the attack in Boulder and clearly labeled it as Jew hatred.

Others, like Rep. Summer Lee, could only manage a generic and pro forma post: “Violence has no place in our communities, and no one should live in fear.”

That is not a good enough. The violence in Boulder — in Washington, in Harrisburg, in Pittsburgh — was antisemitic.

If we want to stop it, we can’t be afraid to name it. PJC