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Yomiuri Shimbun
a day ago
- Business
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Trump Asks Congress to Defund PBS and NPR
Tom Brenner/For The Washington Post The entrance to NPR's Washington headquarters. CPB received $525 million in federal funding in 2024 and $535 million in 2025. But under the new plan, if passed into law, it would see its federal budget completely slashed for 2026 and 2027. A spokesperson from the White House Office of Management and Budget told The Washington Post that it is requesting to rescind about $1.1 billion in funding, and in a post on X called the organization 'left wing.' 'Federal spending on CPB subsidizes a public media system that is politically biased and is an unnecessary expense to the taxpayer,' OMB Director Russell Vought wrote in a letter to the president, which was included in the formal rescission request. The proposed cuts to CPB's budget are part of a larger $9.4 billion rescission package that otherwise largely targets foreign aid through the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. In a budget appendix released Friday for fiscal 2026, the White House proposed cutting all but $30 million in federal funding to CPB, 'to conduct an orderly closeout of Federal funding for the Corporation.' CPB is an independent nonprofit established by the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 that steers congressional allocations to public media entities like PBS and NPR, and their member stations. But President Donald Trump has sought to end taxpayer support for what he considers 'biased' media. In April, he first confirmed his intent to request formal rescission from Congress before attempting to unilaterally defund CPB through a May 1 executive order. On May 27, NPR sued the government in U.S. District Court in Washington, alleging that the executive order violates its First Amendment rights. PBS followed with a similar lawsuit against the government Friday. Paula Kerger, president and CEO of PBS, wrote in a statement that the rescissions would 'have a devastating impact' on PBS member stations, meaning Americans will lose important local coverage. 'There's nothing more American than PBS and we are proud to highlight real issues, individuals, and places that would otherwise be overlooked by commercial media,' Kerger wrote. 'Public media is a public-private partnership and our work is only possible because of the bipartisan support we have always received from Congress. 'During this fight we will demonstrate our value to Congress, as we have over the last 50 years, in providing educational, enriching programs and critical services to all Americans every day free.' Patricia Harrison, president and CEO of CPB, wrote that the organization cannot take criticism seriously and work to improve if its funding is completely cut. 'Federal funding for the public broadcasting system is irreplaceable,' Harrison wrote. 'Public media serves all – families and individuals, in rural and urban communities – free of charge and commercial free. American taxpayers rely upon and trust public media for high quality educational content, information, and lifesaving alerts.' NPR CEO Katherine Maher wrote that this bill would hurt Americans. 'This rescission would have a negligible impact on reducing the deficit and provide little-to-no savings for taxpayers, yet it would harm all Americans, shutting off access to local news, national reporting, music and regional culture, and emergency alerting,' Maher wrote in a statement. Trump has also taken aim at individual CPB officials. Three of CPB's five board members received letters of termination from a White House official on April 28. The next day, CPB and the board members in question sued the government, saying the president – who nominates board members, who are then confirmed by the Senate – does not have the power to unilaterally remove them. The ordeal has been just one prong of a multifaceted war on the media initiated by the Trump administration. The administration has feuded in court with the Associated Press over access to covering White House events, and the president personally sued CBS over an interview with rival Kamala Harris and has since encouraged the FCC to investigate the network. The administration is also in the process of dismantling Voice of America and government-funded nonprofit media networks. Federal funding to PBS and NPR makes up about 15 percent and 1 percent of their respective budgets. Those numbers are higher for PBS and NPR member stations: 18 percent and 13 percent, respectively. More Americans support federal funding to public media than oppose it, the Pew Research Center found in a survey published in March. About 43 percent of U.S. adults said that PBS and NPR should continue receiving taxpayer dollars while 24 percent disagreed and another 33 percent weren't sure. But the issue was much more popular among Democrats, with 69 percent support, as opposed to Republican respondents – only 19 percent thought funding these media outlets was a good idea.
Yomiuri Shimbun
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Yomiuri Shimbun
They Gathered to Turn ‘Pain into Purpose.' Then Gunfire Shattered Their Peace.
Tom Brenner/For The Washington Post A bystander prays while wearing an Israel flag with a cross in the middle, near the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington on May 21. They had gathered in a D.C. museum lobby to hear stories of hope and action. A young aid worker with the Multifaith Alliance, perched beside a vase of white flowers, spoke about efforts to save lives in war-ravaged Gaza. Her group, founded by the daughter of Holocaust survivors, is run by a Syrian refugee, and their success has hinged on building trust in terrible situations. 'As you leave here this evening, please continue to think about tonight's conversation,' said one of the hosts, Sue Stolov, as the program in the Capital Jewish Museum wound down. 'Share what you learned here with friends and colleagues so the impact will ripple like water outward to others.' Then, as some in the crowd began to depart the Wednesday night reception, a man in a hooded coat, who had been lingering outside, trying to light a cigarette in the rain, followed them and pointed a 9mm semiautomatic. He squeezed the trigger – again and again. Then, in the chaos, he went into the museum. 'I did it for Gaza!' witnesses would recall him saying later. 'Free, free Palestine!' The suspected gunman, authorities said, was 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez, a medical clerical worker from Chicago who had traveled to Washington for job-related meetings and is now charged with two counts of first-degree murder and murdering foreign officials. Investigators said they are exploring a possible link between him and social media posts accusing Israel of genocide. The couple killed, Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, 26, both employees of the Israeli Embassy who had attended the Young Diplomats Reception at the museum, were planning to move in together in July, friends said. They said Lischinsky, who had purchased an engagement ring, intended to propose to Milgrim on a forthcoming trip to Jerusalem. As the lights of emergency vehicles strobed red and blue through the windows of the building, many who remained in the museum were unaware of the horror outside. There was still the glow of possibility after an inspiring night. Even when Rodriguez, in a blue blazer, with his trimmed beard and sneakers, rushed breathlessly into the lobby after the killings and settled on a bench, his presence wasn't immediately alarming. He looked like a 'normal person that you walk by on the street,' one woman would say later, though he also began muttering for someone to call the police. This account of Wednesday's tragedy – how an evening suffused with aspirations for peace suddenly dissolved, in the span of a muzzle flash, into unspeakable violence that echoed around the globe – is based on numerous interviews, statements by police and government officials, and publicly available court records. It left JoJo Drake Kalin, one of the organizers of the reception, freighted with grief as she told a reporter the following day: 'It's not lost on me the deep irony that such hatred and depravity happened on a night when we were standing in the utter opposite of that. Gathering in the spirit of peace The day before the shooting, Rodriguez, who was once affiliated with the far-left Party for Socialism and Liberation, had left his apartment on a leafy block of century-old courtyard buildings and classic Chicago two-flats in the East Albany Park neighborhood of the Northwest Side. Authorities said he was headed to Washington for meetings related to his job, verifying physicians' information for the American Osteopathic Information Association, which had two professional events scheduled for Wednesday in the nation's capital. He checked in for his United Airlines flight at Chicago O'Hare International Airport, and authorities said his gun was in his luggage in the cargo hold. The same day, with Rodriguez arriving at Reagan National Airport, Milgrim and Lischinsky submitted their application for an apartment near the Israeli Embassy in Northwest Washington, where they first met. Lischinsky, an Israeli citizen, was a research assistant in the political department and Milgrim, who grew up near Kansas City, Kansas, organized missions and visits to Israel. He was an aspiring diplomat, multilingual and quietly intellectual, an amateur photographer and soccer player; she was an environmentalist, a dog lover, a violinist, a former child vocalist in the chorus of the Lyric Opera of Kansas City. With Milgrim's old goldendoodle, Andy, the couple was on the cusp of a life together. An act of grievous self-harm outside the embassy last year had captivated Rodriguez's imagination, authorities said. Aaron Bushnell, who was on active duty with the U.S. Air Force, doused his clothing with a flammable liquid and fatally set himself ablaze, shouting, 'Free Palestine!' Bushnell had declared in a video that he did not want to be 'complicit in genocide' – and Rodriguez, after his arrest, would tell police that the self-immolation had been courageous, that Bushnell was a martyr, according to court documents in Rodriguez's case. On Wednesday, about three hours before the Young Diplomats Reception was set to begin, authorities said, Rodriguez got a ticket to the event. It remains unclear how he learned of it. The gathering, hosted by the young professionals division of the American Jewish Committee, was the sort of get-together that Lischinsky and Milgrim, described by friends as warm and outgoing, routinely attended. The committee is a nonprofit organization that works to counter antisemitism and promote peace and security for Israel. The theme of the reception was 'turning pain into purpose,' and a panel discussion would include IsraAID, a nongovernmental humanitarian group headquartered in Tel Aviv, as well as the Multifaith Alliance. As a security measure, organizers didn't advertise the location. 'Shared upon registration' was all they said. At the request of organizers, four guards were armed at the museum, rather than one as usual. About an hour and a half before the reception, Milgrim was walking along a street, chatting by phone with Joshua Maxey, executive director of Bet Mishpachah, an LGBTQ+ synagogue in Washington. The two were finalizing plans for an evening of prayer and dinner scheduled for next month to celebrate LGBTQ+ Jews during the city's WorldPride celebration, Maxey said. Milgrim told Maxey that she didn't want to leave any work for him or her colleagues before she departed with Lischinsky for Jerusalem – for the trip on which Lischinsky meant to propose marriage. It was just past 5 p.m. when Maxey and Milgrim said goodbye. He remembered telling her, 'I hope I get to see your smiling face on Friday,' before her flight to Jerusalem 'I did it for Gaza' The Capital Jewish Museum is a glass-and-brick symbol of resilience. A historic synagogue that is integrated into the modern museum complex was lifted up and moved from the city's Chinatown neighborhood in the 1960s, then relocated twice more in the decades afterward. The U.S. Capitol is within sight of the museum's terrace. Diplomats from 30 countries had signed up to attend the reception, and when Wednesday evening arrived, congressional staffers and emissaries from Japan, Australia, Bahrain and other nations milled about the atrium lobby, ordering from an open bar and savoring smoked eggplant, Israeli pearled couscous and za'atar salmon. Ran Goldstein, representing IsraAID, said his group serves as an intermediary in Gaza, trying 'to understand both sides while working according to humanitarian principles.' Milgrim and Lischinsky approached him afterward, chatting about colleagues they had in common. As the reception neared its end, one of the organizers gave Milgrim a hug, and they promised they'd get coffee soon. Then JoJo Kalin rode in an elevator to an upper floor, accompanying a friend to a museum exhibit on Washington's vibrant gay Jewish scene, which includes a 'Mr. Nice Jewish Boy D.C. 2019' sash from a local pageant and Jewish drag queen Ester Goldberg's sparkling purple dress. Outside, Milgrim and Lischinsky stood on a corner, waiting to cross a street, an FBI agent wrote in an affidavit filed in court. In the damp night, Rodriguez walked past them, then turned and looked at them from behind, according to the agent, Christina Hagenbaugh. He can be seen on surveillance video taking a shooter's stance, arms extended toward the young couple, before he opened fire, Hagenbaugh wrote. After the two collapsed to the pavement, Rodriguez moved closer, the affidavit says. It says he leaned over them and pulled the trigger again. As Milgrim tried to crawl away, Rodriguez followed her and continued shooting, stopping only to reload, according to the agent. When Milgrim sat up, the affidavit says, he fired yet again, repeatedly. Evidence technicians would count 21 spent shells on the ground. Video shows Rodriguez then jogging toward the museum entrance, and a witness saw him toss away the pistol, according to court documents. Guests inside heard the crack of the shots, and there was some concern but no hysteria, attendees said. Some dismissed the sound, ascribing it to an obscure disturbance in the city, unconnected to them, while others moved elsewhere in the building for safety. Entering the museum, Rodriguez plopped down on a bench, said Paige Siegel, an attendee. He had been let in with others who had stepped outside, the lawyer said. She said Rodriguez kept talking about calling the police. Kalin was headed down from the museum exhibit, and, when the elevator doors opened, friends told her there had been gunshots. And she saw Rodriguez on the bench, disheveled and pale. Kalin assumed that he had been caught in the commotion outside, and she felt obligated as an organizer to care for a man who seemed unwell. 'I'm so sorry this happened,' she told him. 'Are you okay?' She approached a bartender, who was starting to pack up, and returned with a cup of ice water. As she passed it to Rodriguez, she said, their hands brushed, and she could feel his sweat. Meanwhile, as organizers guided guests to a far side of the lobby, away from the windows and glass doors, Kalin's husband, Yoni River Kalin, pushed his way back toward the entrance, where he saw Rodriguez, now standing up in his blue blazer, his white shirt untucked. 'He said, 'I'm unarmed,'' Yoni Kalin recalled. 'And then he said, 'I did it.' And then he said, 'I did it for Gaza.'' And he began chanting what sounded to Kalin like a mantra. 'Free, free Palestine!' Kalin recalled him saying. 'Intifada, revolution, there is only one solution.' Rodriguez dropped his red and white cloth kaffiyeh, the headscarf seen as a symbol of Palestinian resistance. Kalin bent to pick it up and tried handing it back as an officer grabbed Rodriguez. 'This event was focused on humanity,' Yoni Kalin said. 'I wanted to show him respect as a human.' 'Free, free Palestine!' Rodriguez shouted as he was led away. 'From Hamas!' Yoni Kalin retorted. In the moment, the Kalins and others thought Rodriguez was merely another disruptive protester. They still didn't know that anyone had been killed. While Rodriguez was in custody, authorities said, a post appeared on the social media platform X bearing the name 'Elias Rodriguez,' accusing Israel of 'genocide' and declaring that 'a perpetrator' might be a good person sometimes 'and yet be a monster all the same.' It was titled, 'Escalate for Gaza, Bring the War Home.' At the museum, some guests were taken upstairs to be interviewed; others lined up to talk with police outside the gift shop. Getting texts while they waited, the depth of the tragedy started to become clear. As detectives questioned them, a woman in yellow heels pressed her face into her hands. Soon, countless people the world over would feel her grief. 'I don't want their deaths to be in vain, and I don't want this to just further alienate us,' JoJo Kalin said the next day. 'If people who experienced and witnessed this hate crime can walk away with their humanity still intact and still feel undeterred,' she said, 'I hope that inspires others to not lose sight of their humanity.'
Yomiuri Shimbun
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Cyberdefense Cuts Could Sap U.S. Response to China Hacks, Insiders Say
Tom Brenner/For The Washington Post Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem testifies on Capitol Hill earlier this month. SAN FRANCISCO – As senior Trump administration officials say they want to amp up cyberattacks against China and other geopolitical rivals, some government veterans warn that such an approach would set the United States up for retaliation that it is increasingly unprepared to counter. Alexei Bulazel, senior director for cyber at the National Security Council, said earlier this month that he wanted to fight back against China's aggressive pre-positioning of hacking capabilities within U.S. critical infrastructure and 'destigmatize' offensive operations, making their use an open part of U.S. strategy for the first time. Bulazel, an Oracle security architect before joining the Trump administration, said such 'exciting' action would be the quickest way to 'change the script' and hopefully curb the rising rate of foreign cyberattacks on U.S. targets. He was speaking at the RSA Conference in San Francisco, the largest annual tech security meetup, where some others inside and outside government echoed his position. 'We have done everything, but it is extreme responses that will convince governments' to change their ways, said Rob Joyce, a former head of cybersecurity at the National Security Agency. Yet far more security experts interviewed at the conference were fretting about recent personnel cuts to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and additional ones ahead under the GOP budget reconciliation bill, in which the administration asked for a 17 percent decrease in the budget of the principal civilian cyber agency. The consensus was that the U.S. is not well-defended now, and multiple security firms reported that the number of Chinese hacking attempts detected in the first quarter of this year more than doubled from a year earlier. In a memo to CISA staff Thursday night, the new No. 2 at the agency wrote that the heads of four of CISA's six main divisions – cybersecurity, infrastructure security, emergency communications and integrated operations, which oversees regional offices – were all leaving this month. The leaders of most of the regional offices also are leaving, the memo said, along with the top CISA officers for finance, strategy, human resources and contracting. U.S. security personnel revealed more than 18 months ago that Chinese military hackers had burrowed into the computer systems linked to infrastructure such as water and electrical utilities, ports and pipelines. That initiative, which the U.S. called Volt Typhoon, was soon supplemented by another, Salt Typhoon, that targets telecommunications networks. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Virginia) called it the 'worst telecom hack in our nation's history – by far.' The covert offensive is far from over. Volt Typhoon is showing up in a wider variety of utilities, according to specialists at the cybersecurity firm Dragos, and an FBI official said Salt Typhoon might be able to reinfect carriers after they have been cleaned up. But CISA's parent, the Department of Homeland Security, has now disbanded advisory panels, including the Cyber Safety Review Board, which was investigating Salt Typhoon. 'We need CISA, we need these operations, we need these people and partnerships,' Dave DeWalt, a security industry investor and longtime CISA adviser, told The Washington Post, alluding to the unsettled state of international alliances. 'We've got to go fast, because we are vulnerable – especially if we're doing what we are doing around the world, geopolitically.' Aside from Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon, DeWalt said a still-unfolding onslaught of Chinese attacks on water and power utilities and hundreds of other targets using a flaw in SAP business software shows that malicious activity is surging amid trade tensions between Washington and Beijing. Under Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem, 130 probationary CISA employees have been dismissed, along with a small team dedicated to election security that had come under criticism from Republicans for its reports of misinformation about voting procedures. Many of the agency's numerous contractors have seen their contracts canceled. 'CISA was in disastrous shape when President Trump and Secretary Noem took office,' said a senior official with the Department of Homeland Security who spoke on the condition of anonymity under departmental policy. 'Under the Biden administration, despite a ballooning budget, CISA's mission was focused on becoming a hub of self-promotion, censorship, misinformation and electioneering.' Noem told the San Francisco conference that while the agency has been doing important work, people 'only heard about it when it was doing something bad,' referring to its past contacts with social media companies about disinformation. She also said more responsibility for infrastructure protection should fall to state and local officials. 'I feel like most of the innovation can happen at the state level,' Noem said. At a small Baltimore security conference more recently, former national cyber director Harry Coker said the opposite. 'My small hometown in rural Kansas is under assault every day from nation-state actors and malicious cybercriminals,' Coker said. 'They're going after the local hospital, the local school system, the local financial systems. And no one, especially our government, should expect my rural hometown to be able to defend itself against a nation-state actor.' Security experts and officials from both major political parties had hoped to avoid cuts to CISA as severe as those being levied in other divisions and federal departments. They pointed to CISA's front-line role helping protect civilian government offices and privately owned critical infrastructure from attacks by highly effective ransomware gangs and geopolitical rivals. 'This is no time to pull defenders from the resilience and continuity of operations of lifeline human needs like water, power and access to emergency care,' said Joshua Corman, a former CISA official who now leads a pilot project with the nonprofit Institute for Security and Technology to improve security communications among people working in critical infrastructure. 'The coming storms need more help and better help. The risks are nonpartisan and affect all communities.' Congress has held several hearings on cyberthreats and introduced bills aimed at deterring Chinese spying successes. At one, Rep. Andrew R. Garbarino (R-New York), chairman of the subcommittee on cybersecurity and infrastructure protection, said even early cuts were going too far and that CISA should take on more responsibility for safeguarding government departments. CISA supporters in Congress and employees were encouraged by Trump's nomination of Sean Plankey to head CISA, though Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) has put the nomination on hold until he gets more information on telecom security. Plankey served in several high-level cybersecurity posts during the first Trump administration. Concerns about the agency's efficacy have grown with the personnel and budget cuts, despite a recent court injunction against restructuring without congressional input. 'CISA is indirectly decimating our mid- and top ranks and leaving us without capable and experienced leaders,' said a current employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. Current CISA executives declined to say how many people had left the agency or how it will adapt to the cuts. CISA is 'doubling down and fulfilling its statutory mission to secure the nation's critical infrastructure and strengthen our collective cyberdefense,' Executive Director Bridget Bean said in an emailed statement. 'We have focused our operations on ensuring that we are prepared for a range of cyberthreats from our adversaries.' Especially hard-hit by the cuts are the regional CISA offices that have helped local and state governments targeted by ransomware attacks, officials said. Scores of employees have also left the teams that provide CISA expertise to public and private entities – including hospitals, utilities and local public offices that have proved to be choice targets for foreign-origin hacking. Vermont Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas expressed concern particularly about local offices. 'We don't have the economies of scale that a New York or a California or a Texas has to staff up in-house to provide some of the cybersecurity support and prevention that CISA has been providing,' she said. Especially in light of the prospect of a more openly offensive U.S. cyber stance toward China, the trend toward a less robust CISA has alarmed many experts in the field. 'We were doing about a C-minus before, at risk of going down,' retired Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, who led the congressionally chartered Cyberspace Solarium Commission confronting such issues, told attendees of the cybersecurity convention in San Francisco earlier this month. 'We are not ready for a systemic cyberattack in our country.'
Toronto Sun
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Toronto Sun
EDITORIAL: Politicians silent as Jews are demonized
A bystander prays while wearing an Israel flag with a cross in the middle near the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington on Wednesday night. MUST CREDIT: Tom Brenner/For The Washington Post Photo by Tom Brenner / For The Washington Post The murder of two young Israeli diplomats in Washington, D.C., allegedly by a lone gunman who shouted 'Free, free Palestine' as he was being arrested, was shocking but not surprising. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account The two young Israeli embassy staffers who were about to became engaged — Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Milgrim, 26 — were shot to death as they were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum, allegedly by 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez of Chicago, who is now in police custody. Given the unprecedented level of antisemitism that has been on the march ever since Hamas' terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, tragedies of this type are inevitable. They are the logical escalation of Jew hatred, which starts with hate speech, intimidation, threats and vandalism. Applying this tragedy to a Canadian context, what Canada's besieged Jewish community does not need are more pro-forma denunciations of antisemitism from politicians. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. What is needed is an acknowledgement of reality by Prime Minister Mark Carney, provincial premiers, municipal mayors and police forces across Canada. RECOMMENDED VIDEO An acknowledgment — and meaningful action against — so-called 'pro-Palestinian' demonstrations that are not genuine protests against the suffering of the Palestinians caused by the military actions of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government in Gaza. If they were, the protesters would not be targeting Jewish synagogues in Canada, or Jewish community centres, or Jewish neighbourhoods, or Jewish hospitals, or Jewish day schools, or Jewish students attending university, or businesses owned by Jews. In the real world, the purpose of these demonstrations is to provoke hatred against Jews for the sole reason that they are Jews. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. When our political leaders fail to call out this out, they are implicitly saying that their silence gives consent — that attacking Jews in Canada is justified because of the actions of the Israeli government in Gaza. That's as insane as blaming Muslims in Canada for the terrorism of Hamas. It is one thing for the government of Canada to condemn the actions of the Netanyahu government in Gaza, hardly surprising since the harshest criticism of Netanyahu comes from within Israel. But it is moral cowardice not to denounce the calculated and continuing campaign to demonize Canada's Jewish citizens and it is a dereliction of duty not to enforce our laws against it. Tennis World Sunshine Girls Sports Basketball
Toronto Sun
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Toronto Sun
Israelis express horror at D.C. embassy attack as politicians trade blame
Published May 22, 2025 • 4 minute read A bystander prays while wearing an Israel flag with a cross in the middle near the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington on Wednesday night. MUST CREDIT: Tom Brenner/For The Washington Post Photo by Tom Brenner / For The Washington Post TEL AVIV – Israelis expressed horror and sorrow Thursday at the killing of two young Israeli Embassy workers outside a Jewish museum in Washington by a shooter who then screamed, 'Free, free Palestine!' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account While many Israelis said they were at a loss for words over the tragedy, politicians began to trade blame for the attack. At least four Israeli government ministers took to X to accuse their leftist countrymen of fueling the deadly attack with their criticism of the government. Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said that 'antisemites around the world are emboldened by vile politicians' opposed to the war in Gaza. He singled out opposition politician Yair Golan, a former general who on Tuesday said Israel is in danger of becoming 'a pariah state,' adding that 'a sane country doesn't engage in fighting against civilians, doesn't kill babies as a hobby.' 'Yair, the blood of the embassy employees is on your hands,' Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli wrote on X, while transportation minister and government loyalist Miri Regev described the attack as 'the Golan effect.' Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Golan put the blame on Israel's far-right government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose members have publicly called for the deliberate starvation and mass displacement of Gazans, and reinstitution of Israeli settlements in the Strip. Those were the actions that gave 'fuel to antisemitism and Israel hatred,' he said, and constituted a 'danger to every Jew in every corner of the world.' Hours before the attack, Netanyahu had told reporters that he was still not ready to declare an end to the war in Gaza. The war has long been unpopular with Israeli opposition leaders, family members of the Israeli hostages, and the thousands of their supporters who have flooded the streets on a weekly basis, arguing that the war endangers the remaining hostages in Gaza. However, Golan's comments also stood out as a rare rebuke of the Gaza war's civilian casualties in Israel, where nightly news programs rarely broadcast, and seldom criticize, images of death and destruction from the enclave. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Wednesday's attack killed Yaron Lischinsky, who worked as a Middle East and North Africa researcher at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, and fellow embassy colleague Sarah Lynn Milgrim, who worked in the public diplomacy department. Lischinsky recently bought an engagement ring and was planning to propose to Milgrim, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter, said at a news conference late Wednesday. The shooting will be investigated as a possible hate crime, said Steven J. Jensen, the assistant director in charge of the FBI's Washington field office. Netanyahu did not refer to Golan but said in a statement that he has ordered increased security at Israeli diplomatic missions around the world and that Israel would fight 'blood libel that is costing us in blood.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Members of Netanyahu's government – the most hard-line in Israel's history – have long accused leftist opponents of posing a threat to Jews in Israel and of emboldening antisemitic attackers across the world. For months, Netanyahu's coalition partners have compared anti-government protesters to Hamas, the militant group that vows to destroy Israel. Hamas attacked communities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 250 others hostage. The Israeli response has leveled much of Gaza, displaced 90 percent of the population and killed more than 53,000 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Soon after the war began, U.S. federal officials said they were responding to a rise in threats against Arab, Muslim and Jewish communities, with experts saying there was a significant spike in hate incidents. The Anti-Defamation League, a pro-Israel advocacy group that tracks cases of antisemitic harassment, vandalism and assault in the U.S., said in April that it had recorded more than 9,350 antisemitic incidents in 2024, with a majority of incidents containing 'elements related to Israel or Zionism' for the first time since its audit began in 1979. In a March report, the Council on American-Islamic Relations said its offices received more than 8,650 complaints of anti-Muslim discrimination in 2024 and that the war in Gaza 'drove a wave of Islamophobia in the United States.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. On Thursday morning, Israeli President Isaac Herzog pleaded with the Israeli public to recognize the gravity of 'this sad and difficult morning, of a very serious terrorist attack, and at a time when the State of Israel is facing many threats … [and] stop the mudslinging.' 'When it comes to the despicable murder in Washington, domestic Israeli political views have no significance,' Herzog said. Cochav Elkayam Levy, the head of a nongovernmental commission investigating crimes perpetrated against women and children on Oct. 7, said Milgrim had helped her coordinate her visits to the U.S. and described her as a 'remarkably intelligent young woman so deeply committed to human rights' who was active in multifaith and cross-cultural human rights initiatives. Elkayam Levy said she, like many Israelis she spoke with Thursday morning, were still struggling to make sense of the embassy shooting. 'The fact that she was killed in this way, it makes me feel like we're losing our legitimacy to exist,' she said. Basketball Canada Sunshine Girls Columnists Toronto Maple Leafs
