MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
We're following the killing of two Israeli embassy staffers last night in Washington. Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky were shot while leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum. According to Israel's ambassador to the U.S., they were a couple, and they were about to become engaged. An Illinois man has been charged with their murder. The shooting comes amid a record number of antisemitic incidents in the United States - that's according to the Anti-Defamation League. And that is something we're going to talk through now with Daniel Shapiro, former U.S. ambassador to Israel, now a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council. Ambassador Shapiro, welcome. Thanks for being with us, and I am sorry it's under these circumstances.
DANIEL SHAPIRO: So am I. Thanks for having me.
KELLY: Where were you when you heard this news last night? And may I ask what your first thought was?
SHAPIRO: I was in a hotel room in Chicago and immediately started to hear from friends and family all over the United States, in Israel. Of course, I completely condemn the murders of these two innocent people and extend sympathy to their families. But what hit me, I think, was the tragedy and outrage that we are living in an era of an explosion of antisemitism - the statistics you just cited - and antisemitic violence.
And the thing I never thought I would say - was not my experience growing up in the United States; I associated that more with what Jewish communities in Europe lived with - but now, Jews in the United States do have to fear for their physical safety, certainly if they appear Jewish or they're taking part in Jewish communal activities. We go through magnetometers in our synagogues. Our Jewish students are harassed on college campuses. And then yesterday, these two innocent young people were gunned down at a gathering at the Capital Jewish Museum.
KELLY: Does it feel fundamentally different to you - the safety, the security of Jews here in the U.S. and worldwide - does it feel fundamentally different since the start of the war?
SHAPIRO: Certainly that has - that period of time, we've seen a more intensification of those kinds of events. But, you know, let's call it what it is. It's hatred. It's antisemitism. This was an antisemitic hate crime for sure, but it was also an act of terrorism. Terrorism is the use of violence to advance a political agenda. And we now see people expressing themselves not just with outrageous chants - chants that call for violence and terror against anyone who is Jewish or Israeli, things like globalize the intifada - or blaming Jews generally - or maybe they say Zionist, but that's most Jews - for policies related to Israel, or calling for Israel's destruction, saying from the river to the sea. This has become much more common and unfortunately too often associated with violence as well.
KELLY: I will inject that the FBI says they are investigating this shooting as an act of targeted violence. There are still, of course, many questions about how this all came to be and what charges may be filed. I will also note, this couple, they were leaving an event organized by the young, professional group of the American Jewish Committee, which is a pro-Israel advocacy group that confronts antisemitism. Dan Shapiro, how should we think about confronting antisemitism in a moment like this?
SHAPIRO: Right. The anti - the American Jewish Committee does a lot of advocacy on behalf of the Jewish community, but on behalf of interfaith cooperation. That was one of the themes of last night's event as well. Look, we need - first of all, the community itself will need to harden security of our institutions, and law enforcement will need to be more attentive. And we'll need funding for those security requirements.
But we really need moral clarity and strong political and communal leadership from within and without the Jewish community that completely rejects antisemitism and political violence of any kind. We need education of our - to our young people of the history and the insidiousness of this persistent hatred, which just has no place in our society. And then, of course, the Jewish community, we need to be strong and resilient and proud, and we need to double down on our commitments to and our involvement in Jewish communal life and strengthen our ties to allies of all faiths. I strongly believe that the vast majority of Americans reject - utterly reject this hateful violence. But we're now all called upon to express that, and then, of course, to defeat it.
KELLY: And we are now seeing this uptick, that I mentioned, in antisemitic incidents here in the U.S. Last year, a majority of those incidents were related to Israel or Zionism. That's for the first time since the ADL has started tracking this kind of thing. Understanding, obviously, an event like last night is categorically horrific, how do you think about the act of protest against the state of Israel or its political leaders - the sort of protest that is part of a healthy democracy - while rejecting antisemitism?
SHAPIRO: If someone wants to peacefully protest Israeli policy or U.S. policy toward the Middle East, obviously that's permissible and acceptable. I personally strongly disagree with many policies of the current Israeli government. So do many Israelis, by the way. And I, of course, support finding a path for Palestinians to achieve a state of their own.
But, you know, far too often Jews are being harassed and intimidated, now even attacked, in the name of some cause related to the Palestinians. And nothing does more to undermine and really delegitimize that cause than to tie it to antisemitism and violence. Nothing does more to delegitimize that cause than to express sympathy for the murderous terrorist organization - Hamas - that started this war or its goals of destroying Israel. So peaceful protest, expressing oneself about policy views - always allowed. Tying it to these ancient and persistent hatreds and obviously any expression of it through violence, completely unacceptable.
KELLY: I do want to draw on your experience as a veteran of diplomacy in the Middle East. Speak to the impact - the potential impact of this on hearts and minds in Israel. I guess I'm thinking of efforts to try to get back to a ceasefire in Gaza and the extent to which this may harden positions.
SHAPIRO: Israelis have been dealing with this war since October 7. That's when Hamas launched this brutal attack, killed 1,200 innocent people, kidnapped 250 hostages, and the war has been going on too long. Of course, we all want to see it end. I think most Israelis want to see it end. They obviously want their hostages released. We know Palestinians have suffered. Many civilians have suffered as well, and they need the war to end. But, you know, when the ideology that spawned the war, the ideology that led Hamas to carry out the murderous attack in the first place, is replicated around the world against Jewish targets, against Israeli targets, against Israeli diplomats, obviously it raises the concern that this is going to be a long-running theme...
KELLY: Right.
SHAPIRO: ...Of Israeli life and of Jewish life.
KELLY: Right.
SHAPIRO: We certainly need our non-Jewish friends and allies in the Arab world, in Europe, in the United States to speak clearly...
KELLY: OK.
SHAPIRO: ...That whatever your views about policy questions, this can't be the way.
KELLY: Ambassador...
SHAPIRO: And if that...
KELLY: Ambassador...
SHAPIRO: ...We have that...
KELLY: ...We'll leave it there.
SHAPIRO: ...Then we have a better path toward a way out of this.
KELLY: Daniel Shapiro, thank you.
SHAPIRO: Thank you.
KELLY: He was U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Obama. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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