Israel’s foreign minister Gideon Saar, responded to the fatal shooting of two young Israeli Embassy aides outside the Capitol Jewish Museum in Washington, DC at news conference in Jerusalem. Saar said: “This is the direct result of toxic antisemitic incitement against Israel and Jews around the world that has been going on since the Oct. 7 massacre.”
[Law enforcement officials said a suspect shouted “Free, free Palestine” after he was taken into custody.]
American law enforcement, already on alert about rising antisemitism, pledged that its investigation would be comprehensive.
FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino reported Thursday morning on X: “Last night’s act of terror has the full attention of your FBI. Targeted acts of anti-Semitic violence are typically carried out by spineless, gutless cowards. And the penalties will be harsh as we tighten up this investigation and run down any additional leads. I should have additional updates for you shortly as I head back to FBI HQ.”
Last night’s act of terror has the full attention of your FBI. Targeted acts of anti-Semitic violence are typically carried out by spineless, gutless cowards. And the penalties will be harsh as we tighten up this investigation and run down any additional leads. I should have…
— Dan Bongino (@FBIDDBongino) May 22, 2025
Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, a strong supporter of President Donald Trump and his fight against Harvard — which the Trump administration accuses of being, among other things, insufficiently combative against antisemitism — replied with two words: “Thank you.”
Thank you
— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) May 22, 2025
While some Trump critics assert that the administration’s antisemitism initiatives are a cloak masking other priorities– “dangerously hypocritical on antisemitism,” Trump has been called — Ackman believes the Trump administration is on the right track.
He spoke this week at a panel on “The End of an Era: Jews and Elite Universities” at New York’s Center for Jewish History, where he defended Trump’s decision to cut federal funding to Harvard on charges that the university failed to give ample protection to Jewish students during anti-Israel protests on campus.
“You can complain about Trump’s methods, and yes, his latest letter was overreaching, for sure,” said Ackman, referring to the Justice Department’s May 12 letter suggesting Harvard was defrauding the government in its admissions policies. Ackman said: “But Trump is always overreaching. That’s his negotiating style.”
Ackman shared the stage with Deborah Lipstadt, a professor of Holocaust and Jewish studies at Emory University and a former State Department envoy on antisemitism. Lipstadt’s assessment differed substantially from Ackman’s, as she voiced deep reservations regarding the actions of the Trump administration: “What we’re seeing now is an attack on elite universities in the name of antisemitism, which does exist on the campus.”
She added: “What scares me… is if the universities that are fighting win, they will say, ‘We won despite the allegations that we were antisemitic,’ and if they lose, they’ll say, ‘We lost because of the Jews.’”
Leon Wieseltier, former literary editor of The New Republic and current editor of Liberties, also shared the stage with Lipstadt and Ackman.
According to The Times of Israel, Wieseltier got the crowd riled up when he told Ackman: “If you think for a second that Trump’s campaign against the universities is not part of the anti-intellectual, anti-elitist, coercive philistine tradition…” The end of Wieseltier’s sentence was “drowned out by applause.”
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