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Flowers and stones are left outside the Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum on May 23 in Washington, D.C. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images hide caption
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Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Last week's fatal shooting of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, D.C., is raising fresh concern about an increase in far-left militancy in the U.S. Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgram were killed as they were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum on May 21. The suspect arrested in the shooting, 31-year old Elias Rodriguez of Chicago, has been charged with several counts, including two of first degree murder and murder of foreign officials.
According to an FBI special agent's affidavit in the case, Rodriguez told an officer upon arrest, "I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza."
Jeanine Pirro, acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, has said federal authorities are investigating the killings as a hate crime and a crime of terrorism. President Trump has said they were rooted in antisemitism. If, indeed, the suspect planned to kill people because of their Jewish faith, this would represent a major anomaly in lethal, antisemitic violence.
"[It] has typically been the violent far right that has conducted attacks against synagogues, mosques, Black churches," said Seth Jones, president of the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "To have someone from the violent far left conduct an attack against individuals based on their Jewish faith is … relatively new in the United States."
Rising militancy tied to the Israeli-Palestinian War
Since Hamas led an attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, at least five known fatalities in the U.S. have been tied to the conflict. The first was a six-year old Palestinian-American child in Illinois who was stabbed to death by his landlord. Another involved a California college professor accused of involuntary manslaughter and battery of a 69-year old Jewish counterprotester. A third instance involved a woman who was shot dead by off-duty officers after she opened fire at a Houston church with a rifle that police said had a "Palestine" sticker on it. And two men died after self-immolating in protest of the war; one was a U.S. Air Force member outside the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., and the other was an anti-war activist outside the Boston Israeli Consulate.
But the conflict in Gaza has spurred many more cases of political violence.
According to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data project, a nonprofit that tracks political violence and protest events around the world, there have been more than 100 instances of physical conflict at U.S. demonstrations related to the war. Additionally, there have been at least 30 cases of substantial property damage. The ACLED data include only cases where Israel or Palestine were mentioned, potentially excluding many other antisemitic, anti-Arab or anti-Muslim incidents that may have been motivated by the conflict, but where those terms were not explicitly invoked.
Over the nearly 20 months since the hostilities began, Colin Clarke said there has been a radicalization effect in the U.S., particularly of the political left. Clarke is director of research at the Soufan Group, a consultancy that focuses on security and intelligence.
"Only really since October 7th, the war in Gaza, the Israeli military campaign in the Middle East, have we seen this kind of uptick in what I would call far left militancy, far-left extremism surrounding the issue of Gaza," Clarke said. "And not just pro-Palestinian, but actually pro-Hamas, pro-Hezbollah, pro-actual terrorist organizations."
A social media account believed to belong to Rodriguez included posts of videos featuring Hassan Nasrallah, the former leader of Hezbollah, a militant anti-Israel group based in Lebanon. Clarke also said that "a very small slice" of college campus protests have also featured evidence of support for U.S. designated foreign terrorist organizations. But he noted that terrorism is a "small numbers game," where just a few actors can significantly impact public discourse and perceptions of safety.
Political violence trends in the U.S. are changing
During the last five years, federal authorities have emphasized that the most "lethal and persistent" threat, when it comes to domestic terrorism, has come from violent white supremacists. Examples of this violence include the killing of 11 people at a Jewish synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018; the 2019 killing of 23 people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, by a shooter who reportedly said he was targeting "Mexicans;" and the murder of 10 Black people at a Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket by a white male whose apparent writings expressed racist and antisemitic beliefs.
"What the research has shown is that when it comes to – and I don't think there's any other more direct way to say it than the death count – incidents that are typically affiliated with issues or ideologies that might fit in a more far-right bucket have been more lethal," said Katherine Keneally, director of Threat Analysis and Prevention at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a nonprofit that focuses on extremism and terrorism.
"The most dominant tactics used by the left are … typically aimed at property. So arson, vandalism, graffiti, those sorts of activities," said Keneally. "The targeting and outright murder of two people is very much an escalation from those types of tactics."
However, Keneally said that in recent years there has been a shift in political violence. Some recent incidents have not shown clear evidence of motivation by a clear ideology on the right or the left. She said this was true with both men believed to have attempted assassination of Trump. In the first of these, in Butler, Pa., the shooter had reportedly also researched events where then-President Biden would be present. The other, at Trump's Mar-a-Lago property in Florida, involved an individual that Keneally said was deep into conspiratorial content.
Even the case of Luigi Mangione, the accused shooter of the United Healthcare CEO, has not been clear-cut – despite his embrace by some on the far left.
"What he was particularly motivated by was anger at the U.S. healthcare system more broadly," she said. "When you look at the materials that he posted online and his motivation, it was very much motivated by this single issue, more so than anything else."
Many who track political violence and terrorism say the ongoing conflict in Gaza continues to pose a threat within the U.S.
"I think the longer this war persists, the more concern I have that it will trigger extremist activity in the United States," said Jones, of CSIS. He said the possibility that someone on the political left targeted Milgram and Lischinsky because of their religious background represents a disturbing development.
"Frankly, it's an anomaly," he said. "And I think the hard thing for us to know is whether this is just an outlier or whether we're likely to see more of these in the future."
