On April 13, 2025, Cody Allen Balmer set fire to the residence of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shaprio, while he and his family slept upstairs. That evening, the family had celebrated Passover, the Jewish holiday commemorating the liberation of the Hebrew people.
On May 21, 2025, Elias Rodriguez murdered Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, two young employees of the Israeli embassy who were about to be engaged to be married. They died outside the Capitol Jewish Museum, as they left a Young Diplomats events organized by the American Jewish Committee.
On June 1, 2025, Mohamed Sabry Soliman used a makeshift flamethrower and homemade Molotov cocktails in an attempt to incinerate Jewish community members in their weekly gathering to raise awareness of the plight of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas. He burned 15 people, one of them an 88-year old Holocaust survivor.
None of these murderers or would-be murderers concealed their motives. Balmer told the police: “Shapiro needs to know that [Balmer] … will not take part in his plans for what he wants to do to the Palestinian people.” He added: “You all know where to find me. I’m not hiding, and I will confess to everything that I had done.” Rodriguez proclaimed: “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza …. ” As the police took him into custody, he pulled out a red keffiyeh and chanted “Free, free Palestine!” Soliman yelled “Free Palestine” during the attack and later told authorities that he wanted to “kill all Zionist people and wished they were all dead.”
Most pro-Palestinian demonstrators are not violent. But a minority are, and as recent events attest, they pose a real danger to the nation. Their violence has been compared to the lethal actions of the 1960s radicals, who resorted to assassination and bombs to protest the Vietnam War.
But there is another forerunner to today’s violent pro-Palestinian movement, one that not only constitutes a precedent, but may also provide guidance on how to counteract it.
That forerunner is the Ku Klux Klan.
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