Charlie Kirk speaking at the inauguration of Donald Trump in January 2025. Photo: Brian Snyder via Reuters Connect

The assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk sent shockwaves across the world. Tributes poured in from world leaders, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US President Donald Trump, and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Kirk was gunned down at a campus event in Utah — a chilling reminder of the growing threat of political violence in America. His death has already sparked debates about the state of free speech, the dangers facing polarizing figures, and the country’s ongoing battle over gun rights.

Those discussions may feel inevitable in the wake of such a murder. But there is one aspect of Kirk’s legacy that deserves special recognition — especially from those who care about Israel and the Jewish people.

For years, Kirk stood on the front lines of America’s campus culture wars, fearlessly challenging lies about the Jewish State. He didn’t shy away from hostile rooms. He didn’t dilute his message. He made Israel’s case where it most needed to be heard — in classrooms, lecture halls, and student auditoriums where anti-Israel narratives are too often allowed to flourish unchallenged.

Kirk’s political views divided many. But his unwavering defense of Israel, his refusal to allow falsehoods to go unopposed, and his willingness to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Jewish students under fire are something that deserves appreciation. He was, in every sense, a friend of the Jewish State.

And yet, in the hours since his murder, tributes have emerged from some of the very voices who bear responsibility for poisoning the public sphere with anti-Israel hatred.

Figures who once called to “globalize the intifada” — rhetoric that glorifies violence against Jews and Israelis — now strike a mournful tone over Kirk’s death. Journalists, activists, and politicians who have trafficked in antisemitic tropes or winked at violence against Zionists are suddenly against political violence when it takes the life of a man they spent years vilifying.

Take, for example, Democratic nominee for New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. He has infamously refused to condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada” — a phrase that openly romanticizes violent uprising against Jews and Israelis. Only after fierce backlash did Mamdani claim he would avoid the phrase in the future. Yet in the immediate hours after Kirk’s murder, Mamdani rushed to X to declare himself “horrified,” insisting that “political violence has no place in our country.”

I’m horrified by the shooting of Charlie Kirk at a college event in Utah.

Political violence has no place in our country.

— Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@ZohranKMamdani) September 10, 2025

Similarly, Democrat Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN) — who has smeared Jewish students as “pro-genocide” and repeatedly trafficked in antisemitic tropes — joined the chorus. “Political violence is absolutely unacceptable and indefensible,” she wrote, urging Americans to “pray for no more lives being lost to gun violence.” The same politician who has vilified Jewish students for their Zionism now demands the moral high ground on political violence.

And then there is former MSNBC commentator Mehdi Hasan. He used Kirk’s death not to reflect on his own rhetoric, but to settle personal scores — pointing out that Kirk had once called him “a lunatic” and “a prostitute,” and had demanded his deportation. Hasan sought to appear magnanimous: “Nothing, nothing, justifies killing him, or robbing his kids of their dad.”

But this is the same Hasan who has defended the chants for an “intifada,” insisted it is merely “an uprising,” and said Israelis are supportive of genocide. Earlier this year, he was accused of mocking the September 11 terror attacks with a tweet reading: “Make American Planes Crash Again.”

Other tributes were posted and reposted by Democrat former Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-MO), creative director and activist Alana Hadid, and others — all figures with long records of demonizing those who disagree with them politically.

Charlie Kirk was *murdered* by a sniper. He did not simply “die.”

Like Israeli and Jewish victims of terror, add Kirk to the list of murder victims @nytimes cannot sympathize with, therefore treating their deaths with passive headlines. pic.twitter.com/GzTSWWzcRj

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) September 11, 2025

On the other end of the political spectrum, Candace Owens considered herself to be a friend of Kirk’s. Owens, however, is a serial spreader of antisemitic and anti-Israel incitement. In a series of short, heartbroken tweets, Owens begged her followers to “pray” for Kirk and his family. But while she may be emphasizing her utter shock, Owens fails to recognize that her own brand of hateful and conspiratorial rhetoric about the pro-Israel community and Jewish people is a net contributor to an atmosphere of encouraging political violence, irrespective of whether it comes from the left or the right.

The hypocrisy is staggering. You cannot spend years mainstreaming rhetoric that endorses violence against Jews, Zionists, and pro-Israel voices — and then act shocked when that same rhetoric metastasizes into real bloodshed.

Violent language toward Jews and Israel has become disturbingly normalized in American discourse. Now, some of its loudest promoters want to draw neat moral lines when it suits them. But their sudden appeals to civility ring hollow.

This commentary on Charlie Kirk’s murder is not about speculating on motive. It is about the danger of legitimizing rhetoric that dehumanizes opponents and flirts with violence. Words have consequences. And those who excuse or glorify violence against Israel cannot wash their hands when that culture of hostility inevitably corrodes the wider political sphere.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.

Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Emir of Qatar, attends the emergency Arab-Islamic leaders’ summit in Doha, Qatar, Sept. 15, 2025. Photo: Hassan Bargash Al Menhali / UAE Presidential Court/Handout via REUTERS

Iran has criticized the final statement of the Arab-Islamic Summit held in Doha on Monday as insufficient, in the wake of last week’s Israeli attack targeting the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Qatar.

In a statement released shortly after the summit, Iran reaffirmed its “unwavering support for the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination,” while arguing that a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot adequately address the Palestinian issue.

According to the Iranian delegation, “the only real and lasting solution is the establishment of a single democratic state across all of Palestine, through a referendum involving all Palestinians inside and outside the occupied territories.”

On Monday, Qatar held a summit of Arab and Islamic nations in the aftermath of last week’s Israeli strike on Hamas, with leaders gathering to express support and discuss regional responses.

The Sept. 9 strike targeting leaders of the Palestinian terrorist group in Doha marked a significant escalation of Israeli military operations, reflecting Jerusalem’s broader efforts to dismantle the terrorist group amid the ongoing war in Gaza.

Expressing solidarity with Qatar, summit leaders condemned Israel’s strike, labeling it “cowardly, illegal, and a threat to collective regional security.”

In the final statement, the heads of state declared that “an assault on a state acting as a neutral mediator in the Gaza crisis is not only a hostile act against Qatar but also a direct blow to international peace-building efforts.”

Alongside the United States and other regional powers, Qatar has served as a ceasefire mediator during the nearly two-year Gaza conflict, facilitating indirect negotiations between the Jewish state and Hamas.

However, Doha has also backed the Palestinian terrorist group for years, providing Hamas with money and diplomatic support while hosting and sheltering its top leadership.

During the summit, Arab and Muslim leaders called for a review of diplomatic and economic relations with Israel while firmly opposing any attempts to displace Palestinians.

In the final statement, the heads of state also emphasized resisting Israel’s efforts to “impose new realities on the ground,” urged enforcement of International Criminal Court (ICC) warrants for Israeli leaders over war crime allegations adamantly denied by Jerusalem, and coordinated actions to suspend Israel’s UN membership.

Although Iran participated in the summit and endorsed the declaration, its delegation issued a separate statement shortly afterward clarifying that doing so “must in no way be interpreted, explicitly or implicitly, as recognition of the Israeli regime,” reaffirming its rejection of the Jewish state’s right to exist.

Iranian leaders regularly declare their intention to destroy Israel, the world’s lone Jewish state.

The statement also stressed that the Palestinian people have the right to employ “all necessary means to achieve their inalienable right to self-determination,” emphasizing that backing this cause is “a shared duty of the international community.”

As the heads of Arab and Islamic states convened for a summit on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned he did not rule out further strikes on Hamas leaders “wherever they are.”

During a diplomatic visit to Israel, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed strong support for Israel’s position, even as Washington previously voiced concerns over the strike in Qatar, a US ally.

Speaking alongside Netanyahu, Rubio said the only way to end the war in Gaza would be for Hamas to free all hostages and surrender. While the US wants a diplomatic end to the war, “we have to be prepared for the possibility that’s not going to happen,” he said.

Students attend a protest encampment in support of Palestinians at University of California, Berkeley during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Berkeley, US, April 23, 2024. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect

The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) is cooperating with the Trump administration’s inquiry into campus antisemitism, providing materials containing the names of some 160 people identified in disciplinary reports and other official documents.

As first reported by The Daily Californian, UC Berkeley’s official campus newspaper, the university’s Office of Legal Affairs notified every person affected by the mass disclosure, writing to them on Sept. 4.

“Last spring, the [US Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, or OCR]] initiated investigations regarding allegations of antisemitic harassment and discrimination at UC Berkeley. As part of its investigation, OCR required production of comprehensive documents, including files and reports related to alleged antisemitic incidents,” chief campus counsel David Robinson wrote. “This notice is to inform you that, as required by law and as per directions provided by the UC systemic Office of General Counsel, your name was included in report as part of the documents provided by OGC [Office of General Counsel] to OCR for its investigations on Aug. 18, 2025.”

He added, “These documents contained information about reports or responses related to antisemitic incidents.”

Anti-Israel activists told the Californian that the university is helping the Trump administration hunt witches.

“I think the message was sent to anybody has who has ever been accused of antisemitism, which of course, includes a lot of Palestinians,” one said, claiming that he has been falsely accused. “Whenever we teach about Palestine, it usually leads to an investigation. I think they flagged and sent all of that information to the federal government.”

Students for Justice in Palestine, infamous for its ties to jihadist terror organizations, also criticized the move, charging that the administration had promised to conceal their identities and thereby obstruct the government’s inquiry.

“Chancellor Rich Lyons should not have given assurances that he wouldn’t be giving our information to the federal government,” the group said. “Beyond that, he should never have bowed down so easily. I would think that a university that prides itself on being this liberal haven would at least stand up to a fascist like Donald Trump.”

UC Berkeley came under scrutiny in 2024 after a mob of hundreds of pro-Palestinian students and non-students shut down an event at its Zellerbach Hall featuring Israeli reservist Ran Bar-Yoshafat, forcing Jewish students to flee to a secret safe room as the protesters overwhelmed campus police.

Footage of the incident showed a frenzied mass of anti-Zionist agitators banging on the doors of Zellerbach. The mob then, according to witnesses, eventually stormed the building — breaking windows in the process, according to reports in The Daily Wire — and precipitated the decision to evacuate the area. During the infiltration of Zellerbach, one of the mob — assembled by Bears for Palestine, which had earlier proclaimed its intention to cancel the event — spit on a Jewish student and called him a “Jew,” pejoratively.

Other incidents, including the university’s employment of a lecturer who tweeted antisemitic images — one of which accused Israel of organ harvesting, a blood libel — the rewarding of academic benefits for participating in anti-Zionist activity, and the banning of Zionist speakers from Berkeley Law, have raised concerns about anti-Jewish hated on campus. In 2017, The Algemeiner ranked UC Berkeley as number five on “The 40 Worst Colleges for Jewish Students.”

In August, an Israeli professor sued the university, alleging that school officials denied her a job because she is Israeli — a claim its own investigators corroborated in an internal investigation, according to her attorneys at the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law.

Filed in the Alameda County Superior Court, the complaint is seeking justice for Dr. Yael Nativ, who taught in UC Berkeley’s Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies as a visiting professor in 2022 and received an invitation to apply to do so again for the 2024-2025 academic year just weeks after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre across southern Israel.

A hiring official allegedly believed, however, that an Israeli professor in the department would be unpalatable to students and faculty.

“My dept [sic] cannot host you for a class next fall,” the official allegedly told Nativ in a WhatsApp message. “Things are very hot here right now and many of our grad students are angry. I would be putting the dept and you in a terrible position if you taught here.”

Berkeley’s Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination (OPHD) later initiated an investigation of Nativ’s denial after the professor wrote an opinion essay which publicly accused the school of cowardice and violations of her civil rights. OPHD determined that a “preponderance of evidence” proved Nativ’s claim, but school officials went on to ignore the professor’s requests for an apology and other remedial measures, including sending her a renewed invitation to teach dance. After nearly two years, the situation remains unresolved.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.