The murders of Israeli Embassy staff workers Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim last week "almost had to be expected" given the growing campus riots and other demonstrations following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, former Rep. Pete King told Newsmax Sunday.
"This is the logical result of what we've seen after two years, three years of the campus rioting," the New York Republican said on Newsmax's "Wake Up America Weekend," adding that anyone who has enabled the protests has "blood on their hands."
The nation's colleges, he added, should know what antisemitism means and has led to, so now, it's up to what President Donald Trump and "the rest of us can do to stop it."
Lischinsky and Milgrim were shot outside the Capital Jewish Museum, after which their alleged killer shouted "free, free Palestine" as he was being detained, according to news reports.
Former Rep. Jack Kingston, also on Sunday's program, called the shootings "outrageous."
"I live part-time in D.C. and I can tell you, everybody in town is shocked about this because it's almost as if the student rhetoric in Columbia and other college campuses was just students misbehaving, and the universities had this high degree of tolerance, but the rhetoric has spilled over to action," said Kingston.
He added that the murders were "such a cowardly act," but the suspect, Elias Rodriguez, 31, of Chicago, had the "same chant" as the protesters at Columbia University.
Kingston also called for the death penalty in the case.
"I think that people like this have to be executed," he said. "When the message gets out that there's a new sheriff in town, you're going to die if you kill somebody, then I think it's going to be a new ball game."
Meanwhile, King, a veteran of the U.S. Army National Guard, spoke out about the importance of Memorial Day and of remembering the men and women who gave their lives for the United States.
"They were cut down in the prime of their lives and never had the opportunity to share experiences with their family, so they are the true American heroes," he said. 'We should never forget them, and that's what Memorial Day really has to be about. There's barbecues, there's celebrations, there's parades.
"All that is very appropriate and very fitting. If nothing is more fitting than remembering again, those brave men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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