The arson attack on Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and his family appears to have been driven by antisemitism, with a police warrant indicating that the suspect arrested in the case targeted the governor for “what he wants to do to the Palestinian people.”

All of us, on the political left or the right, should be able to condemn antisemitism without hesitation. But the fact is that a prominent Jewish political leader and his family were attacked in their home during Passover didn’t get the attention it deserved in much of the mainstream news media.

Instead, most commentators condemned the attack as just another act of political violence. Washington Post columnist Robin Givhan, for example, wrote that “the entire country is enmeshed in this awfulness. Not that long ago, it seemed that political violence was something that was mostly relegated to American history.”

As naive as it sounds to argue that political violence was ever somehow relegated to the past, failing to recognize and call out the evident antisemitism in this incident is even worse.

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Hours after the arson attack, Shapiro responded with grace and clarity, and he had no problem recognizing that the assault was driven by antisemitism.

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“If he was trying to terrorize our family, our friends, the Jewish community who joined us for a Passover Seder in that room last night, hear me on this: We celebrated our faith last night proudly, and in a few hours we will celebrate our second Seder of Passover again, proudly,” the governor said April 13. “No one will deter me or my family or any Pennsylvanian from celebrating their faith openly and proudly.”

On April 16, the Jewish Federations of North America released a statement condemning the attack as “antisemitic violence perpetrated against” the governor and his family.

Yet, news reports pointed to other causes and motivations. The Daily Beast highlighted the suspect’s apparent struggles with mental health. Another story was critical of a Republican congressman for saying that progressives’ over-the-top rhetoric targeting President Donald Trump and other conservatives contributes to a political climate that makes violence more likely.

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Slate’s Jill Filipovic even blamed conservatives, not antisemitism, for the attack on Shapiro.

“A man tried to murder the governor of Pennsylvania by setting fire to his home, and it’s barely broken through into the news cycle,” Filipovic wrote. “This is in part because there is so much news generated by the Trump administration, from their economically devastating trade war to their attacks on higher education to their refusal to bring back an innocent man they accidentally deported to a Salvadoran prison. But it’s also in part because political violence is losing its shock value, largely thanks to a right-wing movement that embraces violent rhetoric and then either ignores or celebrates the violence it begets.”

Is it wrong to point out here that it was the Republican nominee for president who survived two assassination attempts last year?

Perhaps progressives should look at their own violent rhetoric and the “violence it begets.”

Attack on Shapiro family was more than political violence

Political violence is awful, of course. But the attack on the Pennsylvania governor was more than just politically motivated violence.

We now have strong indications that Shapiro and his family were targeted because they are Jewish.

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Antisemitism is a sickness that has killed millions of innocent people. We need to call it out and condemn it without hesitation.

Antisemitic incidents have spiked since Hamas terrorists attacked Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, 2023. We’ve seen ugly antisemitic violence on college campuses, in the streets of major cities and at synagogues in the United States and other countries.

Now, we have seen a Jewish governor and his family attacked inside their home at Passover.

Let’s be clear: Antisemitism is an evil we must fight with moral clarity and with the courage to call it out for what it is.

Nicole Russell is a columnist at USA TODAY and a mother of four who lives in Texas. Contact her at [email protected] and follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @russell_nm. Sign up for her weekly newsletter, The Right Track, here.