This article originally appeared on JNS.org on September 14, 2025.
The political assassination of Charlie Kirk is not an isolated event. It is the latest symptom of a deeper, growing menace. It is a menace that blends the dogmas of “woke” ideology with the violent culture of jihad and the ancient poison of antisemitism.
And it is a menace that has already attempted to claim the lives of leaders such as U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
This is not abstract. It is clear and present. Ask any Jew or anyone who studies the Middle East without prejudice: they will tell you that in today’s climate, you must watch your back.
In Italy, I have lived with bodyguards for many years. I am certainly not the only journalist—and not the only Jew to walk around with a security detail. Concerns for one’s personal safety have become concrete, daily realities. Threats are no longer rare incidents but routine menaces. This is the life I face each time I return from Israel to my original home.
Kirk’s murder, reportedly carried out by a leftist student at Utah Valley University, was more than an act of violence. It was a warning. Its goal is to impose cultural terrorism on America’s campuses—where anyone who does not conform to the “red-green” orthodoxy is branded a “fascist” or a “Trumpian” and must know he is under threat.
The response of The New York Times said it all: “Charlie Kirk, Right-Wing Force and a Close Trump Ally, Dies at 31.” Dead—not assassinated, not murdered, but dead, as though being violently silenced for one’s views is natural, even deserved.
This is what cultural hegemony looks like today. Statues of Columbus are exiled; Churchill and Eisenhower are recast as villains; Shakespeare and Dante are labeled “racists.”
Meanwhile, ideologies of white supremacy, radical feminism, “intersectionality,” critical race theory and the glorification of transgenderism dominate the academy. Those who dissent are not debated; they are erased.
Charlie Kirk stood against this tide. He rejected abortion, championed family and patriotism, spoke against illegal immigration and, yes, stood proudly for Israel. For that, he was targeted. Did he have to be murdered for this?
The moral hypocrisy is staggering. Feminist movements shed not a tear for the Israeli girls raped and butchered on Oct. 7, 2023. Student protesters ignore the two Israelis murdered outside their embassy in Washington. Yet those same voices justify Kirk’s assassination, with young activists even celebrating, as if they were distributing candy in Ramallah after a terror attack.
This is what happens when malice masquerades as “human rights.” What begins with slogans and stereotypes ends in blood. And the violence that silenced Kirk threatens not only conservatives, not only Jews, not only Christians—but every free voice willing to resist the new orthodoxy.
Charlie Kirk’s free spirit and countercultural courage were his real crime in the eyes of his enemies. But his murder is not the end. It is a chilling reminder: the fight against ideological terror—whether red, green or jihadist—has only just begun.
