Morally adrift: The terror attack outside Washington’s Jewish museum isn’t just another senseless act of violence—it’s a symptom of a society that has lost its moral bearings, writes the Hudson Institute’s Mike Watson.
Like sailors drinking sea water out of desperation, Watson argues that America’s institutions have turned to poisonous ideas—radical anti-Semitism, anti-Americanism, and revolutionary socialism—that may momentarily “relieve a parched throat” but ultimately corrode. “Healthy societies tend to repel self-defeating bigotries,” he writes, but “it’s the sick ones that drink the saltwater.” From the 2017 congressional baseball shooting to the more recent glorification of leftist killers like Luigi Mangione, Watson sees a pattern of escalating violence that’s no longer being filtered out by civic norms or leadership.
“This civilization is in peril, but it still has the intellectual and spiritual resources to prevail. Out of Nuremberg recently came a young man, a Christian who embraced the Jewish people and represented Israel here in Washington. He met a young Jewish woman from Kansas, and they planned out their lives together. They stood for their people, and died for it,” Watson writes of the two victims of Wednesday’s embassy shooting. “We need more Yaron Lischinskys and Sarah Milgrims.”
READ MORE: Awash in Anti-Semitism
“Mostly peaceful” terrorism: The terrorist who murdered two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, was a big fan of Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Zionist group that claims to represent “Jewish leftists,” reports our Alana Goodman. Elias Rodriguez shared a November 2023 post from the group’s Chicago chapter promoting a pro-Hamas protest against the Israeli consulate. The post accused Israel of “genocidal violence” and included an image of masked protesters, many of whom were clad in terrorist-style keffiyehs.
Rodriguez had a hand-written sign in his Chicago apartment window reading “Tikkun Olam Means Free Palestine”—echoing JVP’s Northwestern chapter, which painted nearly the same phrase on campus in October. JVP frequently uses the phrase Tikkun Olam—Hebrew for “healing the world”—as a rhetorical vehicle for opposing Israel’s existence.
Within hours after Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre, JVP issued a statement justifying the attacks and blaming them on “Israeli apartheid and occupation” and “United States complicity.” The group has also celebrated convicted terrorists, including airplane hijacker Leila Khaled and supermarket bomber Rasmea Odeh, while calling Islamic Jihad members “political prisoners.” A recent lawsuit filed on behalf of Oct. 7 victims accused JVP of serving as a “propaganda arm” for Hamas.
READ MORE: Israeli Embassy Terrorist Promoted ‘Anti-Zionist’ Jewish Voice for Peace
Harvard backpedals: The Harvard Law Review has quietly stripped references to race and gender from its application process amid mounting pressure from the Trump administration, reports our Aaron Sibarium. The change comes just weeks after the administration launched a federal investigation into the journal’s use of racial preferences.
“The journal told prospective editors on May 1—three days after the Trump administration began investigating the law review for race discrimination—that they would be encouraged to disclose a slew of protected characteristics as part of their ‘holistic review statement,’” Sibarium writes. But a revised prompt, distributed May 18, asked only about applicants’ “perspectives, experiences, and viewpoints”—with no mention of identity categories. Lawyers say the original language could serve as evidence of discrimination in the federal case against Harvard.
The Trump administration’s investigations into the school are part of its broader campaign to defund and discipline Harvard over allegations of ideological bias and campus anti-Semitism. On Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security revoked Harvard’s ability to enroll foreign students, citing “pro-terrorist conduct” at campus protests.
READ MORE: Harvard Law Review Scrubs Race From Application Process Amid Federal Probe
In other news:
- The father of Elias Rodriguez, the man charged with murdering two Israeli embassy staffers on Wednesday, was invited to President Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress in March by Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García (D., Ill.), the New York Post reported. García praised Eric Rodriguez at the time as “an outspoken advocate against attacks on veterans’ services and the rights of unionized federal employees.”
- The Washington Post is facing backlash over a post from its official X account claiming that Wednesday’s Israeli embassy killings “amplify confusion” about “where Jews belong.”
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