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You shouted “Free Palestine!” as you were arrested, just moments after you gunned down two Jewish staff members of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., as they were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum.
You believed that your bullets would send a message. And they did — just not the one you hoped for.
You thought that by targeting unarmed Jews on American soil, again, you would terrify us, fracture us, silence us.
You failed.
Because here is the truth, whether it suits your narrative or not: We are not afraid. We are not broken. We are not leaving.
In fact, we are more united than we have been in generations.
You see, after October 7th — after Jewish babies were burned alive in their beds, women gang-raped on Facebook Live, and entire families slaughtered in their homes — we did not cower. We mourned, we buried our dead, and then we stood up taller.
You don’t seem to understand what kind of people we are.
We are the descendants of Jews who built hospitals and schools while under siege. We are the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors who crawled out of mass graves and created families, nations, futures.
We are the children of Israel, a miracle more than 2,000 years in the making that has survived seven wars, three intifadas, and endless terror — and still sends humanitarian aid to the very people whose governments pledge to destroy us.
We are the Jews of Washington, Paris, London, Mexico City, Toronto, Sydney, Buenos Aires, Johannesburg, and Jerusalem. And we are done apologizing for being alive. We are done explaining why we deserve safety. We are done pretending that hatred against Jews is just “political.”
There is nothing “liberatory” about murdering Jews. There is nothing “progressive” about shooting diplomats in the back. And there is nothing “anti-Zionist” about stalking Jews at a museum in a city that once swore “never again.”
You chose a Jewish museum for your violence. Of course you did. Antisemites have always attacked our memory as much as our bodies.
You’ve burned our books. You’ve banned our speakers. You’ve barred sales of real estate to us and our entry into country clubs. You’ve targeted our places of remembrance. But let me remind you: Jewish history does not end in museums. It lives in our homes, our holidays, our prayers, our army, and our future. We are not artifacts; we are architects of a better world.
You screamed “Free Palestine” — as you shed Jewish blood. But the world sees your slogan now for what it truly is: not a call for peace, but a license for murder. If you wanted peace, you’d protest violence, not commit it. If you valued life, you wouldn’t glorify death. If you wanted freedom, you wouldn’t target the only free country in the Middle East.
You didn’t care that the victims were not soldiers. You didn’t go to the battlefield. You waited outside a museum and fatally shot two people who weren’t armed. They were in a museum, not on a battlefield. To you, any Jew is a target — whether in Sderot or D.C., Tel Aviv or Toronto. There’s a word for that, and it isn’t resistance; it’s cowardice.
But you’ve reminded us of something essential: We’re one people. Your hatred doesn’t differentiate. And neither does our loyalty. When you attack Jews in Washington, you awaken Zionists in Paris. When you spill Jewish blood, you forge Jewish unity.
And let’s not pretend like this happened in a vacuum. For decades, the mainstream media has been running a global blood libel against Israel, peddling unverified casualty figures from Hamas, airbrushing the atrocities of October 7th and the barbaric conditions of our hostages in Gaza, and portraying Israel as a genocidal monster.
They’ve handed our haters a moral permission slip. They’ve painted a target on every Jew walking out of a synagogue, a museum, a school. They broadcast “Israel bombs hospitals” and “Israel kills Palestinian children,” and then Jews are attacked across the world. They tweet about “starvation” in “Palestine” and some deranged Jew-hater picks up his gun. The press may wash its hands after every headline, but we are the ones who bleed.
They habitually take the side of the mostly jihadist Palestinians instead of the mostly peaceful Jews. They have given plenty of empathetic facetime to those who chant genocidal slogans and glorify martyrdom over a democratic nation that consistently warns civilians before striking terrorist targets. They contort themselves to “contextualize” the slaughter of Jews, while stripping away every ounce of context from Israel’s right to defend itself.
It is a grotesque inversion of morality: Terrorists are called “militants,” hostages are a measly afterthought, and Hamas propaganda is reported as eyewitness news.
The result? A narrative that justifies violence against Jews everywhere — at embassies, on college campuses, on subways, and in synagogues. They imply “genocide,” and mobs surround Jewish communities. They hint at “apartheid,” and someone decides a museum is a shooting range.
When you treat Israel as a uniquely evil state and Palestinians as a uniquely blameless people, you don’t just skew the truth; you license the hatred, with Jews around the world paying the terrible price.
And, to those watching in silence: We see you, too. We see which voices are loud when it’s socially or politically convenient — and which ones fall silent when Jews lie bleeding on the pavement. We know that if the murderer was White and the victims Black or Asian, hundreds of thousands of people would take to America’s biggest cities the very next day proclaiming “Black Lives Matter” and “Stop Asian Hate.”
But when it is Jewish lives taken, especially in the name of “Palestine,” we hear mostly crickets and a few messages of private support.
We ask you only this: If you claim to be against hate, then be against all hate, not excluding the kind that targets Jews.
You may wrap your hatred in slogans and hashtags, but the stench is unmistakable. When your activism ends in Jewish corpses, it’s not justice; it’s Jew-hate. When your target is a Jew simply for existing, your flag doesn’t matter. You’re no freedom fighter. You’re just another chapter in a long, ugly history.
We have outlived Pharaohs and Pogroms, Inquisitions and Intifadas. And in every generation, our answer is the same: not just survival, but renewal. We don’t just bury our dead; we build schools in their names. We don’t just mourn; we multiply. We sing, we write, we invent, we love, we plant, we rebuild. You bring bullets. We bring babies.
To my fellow Jews reading this: You are not alone. Not now. Not ever. Whether you wear a kippah, light Shabbat candles, or only recently began reconnecting with your identity, know this: Being Jewish is not a liability. It is a legacy.
Be proud of who you are. Take part in the global Jewish awakening. Rise in synagogues, streets, and college campuses, in Israel and in the Diaspora. We are not confused. We know exactly who we are. We are Jews. We are Zionists. And we are unapologetically proud of that.
But don’t mistake our pride for arrogance, our resilience for apathy, and our strength for callousness. The truth is: We feel every loss. We mourn every death. We carry every scar. We simply refuse to let our pain become our identity. We transform it into purpose.
And, ultimately, we do not fear our miserably pathetic haters. We pity them. Because, in trying to erase us, they only reveal how desperately they wish they could be us: proud of who we are, connected across oceans, and blessed with a beautiful homeland.
So let this be clear: We will not be intimidated out of our communities. We will not be victims in silence, or Jews only in hiding. We will sing Hatikvah1 louder. We will light candles in the dark. We will wear our Stars of David with confidence. And we will raise our children to know that being a Jew is not a risk, but a blessing.
So, thank you for reminding us who we are. Now go rot in prison.
Israel’s national anthem
P.S. it might surprise you to know that there are MILLIONS of Americans who LOVE the Jewish people and who were appalled, saddened and enraged that they were slaughtered on 10/7 by your people, who are full of lies and the cult of death.
You always say what needs to be said SO WELL, Joshua. Thank you.