(JEWISH GROUP) Even if the Capital Jewish Museum shooter 'did it for Gaza,' his actions were antisemitic [View all]

The suspect who has been charged with shooting and killing two Israeli embassy staffers Wednesday night outside a Jewish professionals event at the Capital Jewish Museum chanted “Free Palestine” as he was being taken into custody. A witness told Jewish Insider that the suspect said “I did it for Gaza.”

To put this very plainly: The words “Free Palestine” themselves are not antisemitic. When I hear them chanted at a protest, or I read them in an op-ed, or when I see them graffitied around my neighborhood, I do not feel threatened. A call for the liberation and dignity for one group of people isn’t inherently a call for the denigration of my own safety and security.

But the words “Free Palestine” also do not magically erase antisemitism from, nor do Israel’s actions in Gaza automatically greenlight, an act that violently targets Jews.

Condemnation for this act has come from across the political spectrum. But there have also been, for example, social media comments responding to the story by saying that “anti-genocide is not antisemitism” or citing the number of Palestinian children killed in Gaza, or insisting that the victims “weren’t shot for being Jewish” but because they worked for the state of Israel (a fact the shooter may not have known). To be clear: It is antisemitic to seek out a Jewish event at a Jewish museum for an act of violence.

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