The ‘anti-Zionist’ threat: American Jews increasingly the target of anti-Israel violence

Kyle Shideler, director and senior analyst for homeland security and counterterrorism at the Center for Security Policy, observed that Shapiro’s alleged attacker, Pennsylvanian Cody Balmer, “appeared to have something of an anarchist persuasion, and Shapiro was an object of hate on the Left because of his Israel stance,” which the anti-Israel Left vilified during the 2024 election.

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Finally, Egyptian national Mohamed Soliman, “the Boulder attacker, by all appearances was a self-identified jihadist, and media reports suggest connected to the Muslim Brotherhood,” Shideler said. “We know, of course, that Brotherhood-linked mosques have been producing copious antisemitic material and Brotherhood-linked organizations have played a major role in protest organizing.”

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Like Wisse, Shideler characterized antisemitism as “the method being used, rather than the objective. The objective is a political one: defeat of Israel, America, and the West, and the institution of a communist or Islamist revolution. Antisemitism is, in a sense, ‘the means’ for whipping their cadres into a fervor and inspiring them to violence.” Attacks represent problems of “national security and subversion” and are “ultimately aimed at all Americans and the destruction of our shared way of life.”

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Far-left violence especially merits more attention. Shideler commented that “the notion that individuals who engage in terrorist acts or acts of political violence are merely radicalized loners or crazy people is completely wrong. Elias Rodriguez existed within a milieu of communist organizations with an extensive history, and with a cogent ideology and explicit and detailed doctrines of behavior … and based on endorsements from groups like the DSA Liberation Caucus and Unity of Fields, his action was … viewed [by comrades] as a useful method for advancing their political goals.”

There’s been “a growing wave of far-left — that is, anarchist or communist — violence,” Shideler noted. That includes antifa’s 2016 attacks on Trump backers, “mass rioting” at 2020’s Black Lives Matter protests, “Jane’s Revenge attacks on pro-life and church buildings,” attacks on “Tesla dealerships, and now targeted assassination.”

To counter this extremism more effectively, Shideler recommended returning to “a counterintelligence approach” that would actively “disrupt revolutionary and foreign-backed subversive groups” capitalizing on public debates “to agitate and demoralize the American people and undermine our faith in our country and government.”