Boulder, DC Terror Attacks Targeting Jews Were ‘Political,’ Not Anti-Semitic, NYT Columnist Suggests

‘Violence that looks antisemitic may … be something else,’ writes Masha Gessen

New York Times opinion columnist Masha Gessen suggested that the terror attacks targeting two Israeli embassy employees in Washington, D.C., and a group of Jews marching in support of Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colo., weren’t anti-Semitic but rather “political.”

Gessen argued in a Wednesday column that “violence that looks antisemitic may—even when it very effectively serves to scare a great many Jews—be something else.” The columnist suggested the attacks were instead politically driven.

“Neither of these events was exclusive to Jews, as a synagogue service might be. Both events were inextricable from the war in Gaza,” Gessen wrote. “And though the violence in Boulder was wide ranging, the shooting in Washington seems to have been very specifically targeted—at two representatives of the Israeli government.”

Both attackers, however, targeted events that would attract Jews specifically. Elias Rodriguez shot and killed Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim outside the Capital Jewish Museum at point blank range and screamed “Free, free Palestine” upon his arrest. Mohamed Soliman threw two molotov cocktails—with 16 more and a makeshift flamethrower nearby—at a group that meets weekly to support Israeli hostages in Hamas captivity, injuring 15, including an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor. Soliman was caught on film yelling to “end Zionists.”

The terror attacks have reverberated across Jewish communities. Boulder-area Jews rallied after the firebombing, but told the Washington Free Beacon that the incidents have left them on edge, if not fearful.

Gessen’s column comes as anti-Semitic incidents surge across the nation, with the Anti-Defamation League reporting more than 10,000 incidents in the year after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, marking over a 200 percent increase. It also contradicts a piece from the New York Times editorial board, which stated, “No political arguments or ideological context can justify” growing bigotry against Jews. It also recognized that “antisemitism has become an urgent problem” leaving “Jewish Americans at a greater risk of being victimized by a hate crime than any other group.”

While Gessen acknowledged that the D.C. and Boulder incidents, which occurred less than two weeks apart, were terror attacks, the columnist also argued that they stemmed from “Israel’s devastation of Gaza following the Hamas attack on Oct. 7.” Gessen pointed out that Rodriguez didn’t mention “Jews” or “Zionists” in his 900-page manifesto, opening “the possibility that he had a different motive.”

New York Times spokesman Charlie Stadtlander defended Gessen’s column as part of the paper’s effort to “put forth original perspectives on the world, and any fair reader of our opinion report will understand this inherently. There isn’t another media institution, digital, print or broadcast, that commits more resources to audiences’ understanding of multiple viewpoints.”

Gessen is in Ukraine and “unable to take time away from reporting” but trusts “my argument is laid out clearly in the column,” the columnist told the Free Beacon in an email.

Gessen’s arguments were part of a broader piece, “The Attacks on Zohran Mamdani Show That We Need a New Understanding of Antisemitism,” which asserted that New York City’s presumptive Democratic mayoral nominee has faced false accusations of anti-Semitism. Ahead of his primary win, Mamdani defended the phrase “globalize the intifada,” a popular chant at anti-Israel protests that calls for violence against Jews worldwide.

Gessen’s column also pointed to arguments made in Jewish Currents, an anti-Israel publication backed by Iranian-American businessman and left-wing donor Francis Najafi. Publisher Daniel May wrote in a June 11 post that anyone committed to ending attacks on Jews “should be working to stop” destruction in Gaza. He effectively argued that anti-Zionism is distinct from anti-Semitism.

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance defines anti-Semitism as “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”