When words turn deadly

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NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It, ideology turns deadly in Washington.

SOUND: [Singing at the Western Wall]

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at the Western Wall in Jerusalem Sunday. She was there to pay tribute to two young Israeli embassy staffers killed in cold blood last week in the U.S.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Yoran Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum when a gunman shot them at point blank range, shouting afterward, “Free, free Palestine.”

The feds booked suspected killer Elias Rodriguez, a Chicago-native with links to pro-Palestinian and Marxist student groups.

MARIAM WAHBA: If you subscribe to a violent-based ideology, violence will come.

Foreign policy expert Mariam Wahba spoke with our Washington producer Harrison Watters and told him she saw early reports of an incident at an event for young diplomats.

WAHBA: And my first thought was, I'll text Yaron about this in the morning. He must know what happened…So it was a real shock to wake up the next morning and to see that it was a friend that had unfortunately been murdered.

Wahba met Lischinsky two years ago after moving to Washington. She assumed that because he worked for the Israeli embassy, he was Jewish.

WAHBA: And he corrected me when I was talking about the first Council of Nicea, because I said it was in 425 and he correctly corrected me to say it was actually in 325 and I was like, huh, this guy is either, like a nerd, early Christian theology nerd, like I am, or there's something a little bit more here.

EICHER: Lischinsky was raised by a Jewish father and Christian mother in Israel. The family emigrated to Germany while he was in high school. There he attended a messianic congregation, for Jews who believe in Jesus. Wahba says Lischinsky’s faith drove his work in foreign policy to be a peacemaker. The event where he was killed was to discuss ways to deliver humanitarian aid to places like Gaza.

WAHBA: He wanted to explain the Jewish state to people. He wanted to explain this tiny nation in the middle of the in the middle of the Middle East, to the rest of the world, and explain what it was and what it stood for.

Sarah Milgrim of Overland Park, Kansas also worked at the Israeli embassy. She was planning to go with Lischinsky to meet his family in Jerusalem over Memorial Day weekend.

Kansas City Jewish Federation President Jay Lewis joined Milgrim’s parents at a vigil last Thursday.

JAY LEWIS: Today Bob and Nancy found out only hours before the rest of us in the media that Yaron had purchased an engagement ring and planned to propose to Sarah in the coming weeks when they went together to Israel.

REICHARD: While the murder was brazen and shocking, Wahba says she had a growing expectation something like this was imminent. She’s been concerned by the violent protest rhetoric against Israel since the terror attacks by Hamas on October 7, 2023.

WAHBA: We've had encampments in the middle of New York City yelling, kill Jews, kill all the Zionists, chanting about wanting to bring the Intifada to American cities. This is what it means to bring the Intifada to American cities.

EICHER: Back in March, President Trump moved to address campus unrest by threatening to withhold federal dollars from schools like Harvard and Columbia. He also set up a Justice Department task force to investigate antisemitism on campus and look into who is funding the events and student groups spreading hate.

WAHBA: The problem is it is a government task force, so it's moving at a government pace. It's moving at a bureaucratic pace. And if we can do anything, or if we can begin to do anything to honor Yaron’s memory, is to really put more resources, more manpower behind this task force.

REICHARD: The day after the murder, the US Attorney’s office for the District of Columbia filed charges of murder of a foreign official. Here’s former FOX News host and interim U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro.

JEANINE PIRRO: The defendant Rodriguez is also charged with two counts of murder in the first degree, for both Yaron Lischinsky along with 26-year-old Sarah Lynn Milgrim of Kansas.

Law enforcement gathered evidence at the 31-year-old suspect’s home in Chicago. Alderman Debra Silverstein spoke to the press.

DEBRA SILVERSTEIN: We have learned that the attacker lives in Chicago and was likely radicalized right here in our city. This is not just a national tragedy, it is a local wake-up call.

EICHER: The night of the attack … the suspect slipped into the Capital Jewish museum after allegedly shooting the couple. When police arrived to take him away—

RODRIGUEZ: Free, free Palestine!

… that’s when he started shouting.

Middle East researcher Wahba says chants like that are not idle words.

WAHBA: People are just not indoctrinated and radicalized overnight. This is 600 days of being fed this rhetoric and vitriol that results in somebody thinking that they can get a gun and shoot innocent civilians on the street.

REICHARD: According to the Anti Defamation League, since July of last year this is the 8th terrorist plot or attack on Jewish people or institutions.

WAHBA: We live in a world where Jews and supporters of Jews, supporters of the Jewish state can't go to a diplomatic event aimed at promoting peace, promoting ways to get humanitarian aid to innocent civilians without the fear of being shot on the streets, we have some real problems that we need to fix, if that is the question we're asking ourselves.

EICHER: Wahba’s family moved to the U-S from Egypt for religious freedom. They are Coptic Christians. Watching the aftermath of Wednesday’s attack, Wahba is concerned America is not the safe haven it once was.

WAHBA: We have to think about how this is getting through, why this is getting through, and what urgent actions we can take to stop this from happening.

Yaron Lischinsky was buried in Israel on Sunday, in a village west of Jerusalem. Sarah Milgrim’s family will honor her life in a funeral today in her hometown.

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