On Thursday evening, a terrorist gunned down two staff members from Israel’s Embassy in Washington, D.C., as they were leaving an American Jewish Committee event focused on promoting unity and understanding among young diplomats.

According to early reports, the shooter, a 30-year-old associated with radical leftist organizations in Chicago, had an online footprint filled with vile antisemitic ranting and support for terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, including a manifesto posted on Thursday evening explicitly calling for the murder of American Jews in response to Israel’s war in Gaza.

The short video of the police hauling the killer away in handcuffs sharply captured the dystopian world we now live in. Newly minted as the coldblooded murderer of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, a beautiful young couple about to be engaged, he proudly chanted “Free Palestine!” in a cadence eerily familiar to any college student who has walked by an encampment in the last year.

Indeed, what’s most shocking and horrifying about Thursday’s events to anyone who has been paying attention is just how unsurprising they are.

The tributes pouring out about the two we lost make clear that they are heroes who built bridges and fell deeply in love with each other as well as with the Jewish state. They didn’t pursue their jobs for the money or because it was easy or comfortable. Their choices meant that........

© The Hill