The American Jewish Committee, Israel’s Mission to the United Nations and the Consulate General of Israel in New York held a vigil in New York City on Wednesday for Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Milgrim, 26, two Israeli embassy staffers who were shot and killed last week outside an AJC event in Washington, D.C.
Ted Deutch, CEO of AJC, said at the event that the incident is “harrowing not just because of the two beautiful souls we lost but because it could have happened to any of us in the world.”
The murders coldly manifest the words of a chant heard by anti-Israel protesters since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023: what globalizing the intifada looks like, Deutch said.
“When people dehumanize Jews and Zionists, when they spread lies about and demonizations of Israel, this is the outcome we should expect,” he said. “Antisemitism left unchecked can and will lead to violence. We’ve seen this in Amsterdam, Paris, Tel Aviv and in our nation’s capital.”
Speaking at the memorial service, Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, condemned officials at the world body for spreading lies about Israel in the days leading up to the attack.
“It is not a coincidence that just two days before this horrific attack, Mr. Tom Fletcher, a senior U.N. official, falsely claimed that 14,000 babies could die in Gaza,” he said at the memorial service. “This was a lie. A blood libel.”
Normalizing hate against Israelis can lead to violence, according to Danon.
“Yaron and Sarah paid the price for words that should never have been spoken and that were never condemned,” he said. “When Israeli diplomats are no longer safe walking the streets of the free world, the alarm bells must ring in every capital.”
He added that “this was not only an antisemitic killing. It was an attack on the very foundation of diplomacy.”
