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In 1973, Col. Yosef Alon, an Israeli military attaché, was gunned down in front of his home in suburban Maryland. The gunman was never identified despite an extensive F.B.I. investigation.
May 22, 2025, 4:01 p.m. ET
More than 50 years ago, an Israeli diplomat was gunned down in his driveway in suburban Maryland after returning from a dinner party.
On Wednesday night, two staff members at the Israeli Embassy were fatally shot as they left an event organized by the American Jewish Committee at the Capital Jewish Museum. The suspect, the police say, shouted, “Free, free Palestine,” after he was in custody.
The earlier case remained unsolved, but the parallels between the shootings are stark, echoing a combustible chapter in Israeli-Palestinian relations in which violence flared around the globe.
“It was a time of heightened tensions between Palestinians and Israelis just as they are today,” said Eugene Casey, a retired F.B.I. agent who investigated the killing of Col. Yosef Alon, the military attaché who was shot five times.
Since Hamas’s devastating attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel’s large-scale response, pro-Palestinian protests spread across the United States, including at Israeli consulates and college campuses, during the grinding conflict in Gaza.
The Trump administration and Israel are among those who have accused the protesters of promoting antisemitism and inciting violence against Jews with inflammatory rhetoric. Demonstrators and their supporters have denied the accusations and most of the protests have been nonviolent.
