Arsen Ostrovsky 
Arsen Ostrovsky 
On Wednesday night, the unthinkable happened on American soil: two young Israeli diplomats, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, were brutally gunned down in a targeted, antisemitic attack outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., by a perpetrator who shouted “free Palestine,” as he was being arrested.
The brutal reality is that such an act of utter violence was the logical and horrific consequence of a relentless campaign of demonization, disinformation and delegitimization against the Jewish state — led not by fringe extremists alone, but by western governments and institutions.
Although the blood of these two young diplomats is first and foremost on the hands of their killer, responsibility is also shared by every government that has, in recent months, legitimized hatred against Israel under the guise of international law, diplomacy and human rights.
The United Kingdom, for example, once a stalwart ally of Israel, has disgracefully suspended free trade negotiations, imposed sanctions on some Israelis and summoned Israel’s ambassador for a public dressing-down over Gaza, which it has called “intolerable” and “monstrous.”
France has followed suit, embracing punitive rhetoric, while doing little to pressure Hamas to release the hostages and calling for immediate recognition of a Palestinian state.
Canada, under new leadership, has shown alarming signs of softening its support for Israel, while, like the U.K. and France, increasingly parroting Hamas talking points on Gaza and ignoring the grotesque reality of Hamas’s tactics — including embedding weapons in schools, hospitals and civilian homes, and using its own people as human shields in its war of annihilation against the Jewish state.
Earlier this week, each of these three countries were immediately applauded by Hamas, upon announcing an unprecedented joint condemnation of Israel and threats of further sanctions against the Jewish state, if it does not acquiesce to their demands over aid that continues to be systematically diverted and weaponized by Hamas.
This relentless campaign to isolate, sanction and vilify Israel does not occur in a vacuum. It clearly sends a message. A message that Israeli lives are worth less, that Jewish self-defence is unacceptable and that terrorism against Israelis may not only be tolerated, but tacitly justified.
And this message is being received loud and clear — by violent extremists on the streets of London, Paris, Montreal and now Washington, D.C., by radicalized students chanting genocidal slogans to “free Palestine” and to “globalize the intifada” on western campuses, and yes, by the killer who walked up to Israeli diplomats in Washington and ended their lives in cold blood.
This is certainly not the first time that the dehumanization of Jews has led to violence. But it is perhaps the first time in recent memory that it has been so directly aided and abetted by Israel’s supposed allies.
Published in National Post, May 24, 2025.