On a tranquil Sunday afternoon in Boulder, 12 people, including an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor, were set on fire.
The majority of survivors are Jewish and were part of a community event on the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, organized by Run for Their Lives, a global movement. The Boulder chapter held weekly, peaceful walks dedicated to bringing home innocent hostages that were kidnapped over 600 days ago and taken to Gaza during Hamas’ horrific terrorist attack on October 7th. Others coming to the aid of the targeted victims were also injured.
Mohammed Sabry Soliman, an Egyptian national who was here illegally, has been accused of arming himself with at least a dozen Molotov cocktails and a makeshift flamethrower. Eyewitness accounts and videotaped evidence immediately flooded the Internet and showed Soliman throwing Molotov cocktails and using a flamethrower as he shouted “Free Palestine.” He also was seen yelling, “we need to end Zionists”.
This was not some ambiguous act of violence. It was an obvious act of terrorism and hate crime against Jews.
The FBI wasted no time Sunday in labeling it as a “targeted act of violence,” and a few short hours later, at about 3:30 p.m., FBI Director Kash Patel, posted on X that it was ” a targeted terror attack.” Both statements underscored the agency’s recognition of Soliman’s obvious motive behind this heinous crime.
Many local news outlets reported Patel’s and Polis’ statements, and Gov. Jared Polis posted on X a few minutes after Patel, calling the attack a “heinous act of terror.” A small group of Colorado Democratic leaders, including Sen. Michael Bennet, Congressman Joe Neguse, and Congresswoman Brittany Pettersen, also didn’t hesitate to call it a terrorist attack against Jews in early statements.
Labeling matters, but in those crucial first hours, there was hesitation from much of the mainstream media and local law enforcement, which carefully avoided using the term “terrorism” in the headlines of their initial coverage and in official reports made to the public. And, despite the FBI quickly classifying it as an obvious terrorist attack, many Democratic officials were silent, and those who did speak out often used words like “attack” and “incident” or generic hate with no attribution that this act of terror targeted Jews.
Why didn’t this incident erupt into universal and immediate condemnation? Why haven’t our leaders urgently convened to better understand the full scope of this terrorist attack?
The same lack of outrage happened with other recent high-profile incidents like Gov. Josh Shapiro’s house being set on fire by a person who accused the governor of violence against Palestinians. And, it happened last month when Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, 26, were murdered in cold blood after attending a Young Diplomats Reception hosted by the American Jewish Committee at the Washington, D.C., Capital Jewish Museum by a man shouting, “Free, free Palestine.” These acts were perpetrated against Jews because they were Jewish. And each time there is a celebration in certain quarters and less outrage in most, these acts are steadily becoming normalized.
Even now, after Soliman told investigators that he planned the terrorist attack for a year and wanted to “kill all Zionist people and wished they were all dead,” many leaders, as well as progressive and minority party caucuses, have remained conspicuously silent about this heinous act of targeted terror.
Are they afraid to speak out against radical elements within the Free Palestine movement, or do they simply not care enough about Jews being burned? Either way, silence serves to normalize antisemitism.
Of course, not every supporter of Palestinian rights endorses violence. But make no mistake, we have witnessed a historical rise of antisemitism, and a reign of terror against Jews from parts of the Free Palestine movement. A growing radical crusade within these organizations and movements in which they hide their faces like the Ku Klux Klan, carry Hamas flags, use Hamas military symbols, chant “from the river to the sea”, taunt and harass Jews, and outwardly advocate for globalizing the intifada.
They are breeding antisemitism and radicalizing followers under the false guise of social justice. Too many Democratic officials seem reluctant to confront the elephant in the room. They’d rather cower by staying silent or walking on eggshells in order to avoid being targeted themselves.
Words have consequences, and as we have seen in the Middle East and Europe, it’s only a matter of time before people like Mohammed Soliman, Elias Rodriguez and Cody Balmer are radicalized and more Jews are burned, assaulted, murdered, or have their houses or synagogues set on fire.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, anti-Jewish incidents in 2024 were 41% higher than the previous year. They have skyrocketed by more than 373% since 2020. Colorado ranked ninth in the nation in 2024 for antisemitic incidents. While Jews make up only 2% of the United States population, they represent 68 percent of all reported religion-based crime.
Jews in America, like me, are angry. We have never experienced this dangerous level of antisemitism and violence in our lifetimes. All Colorado synagogues have enhanced their security protocols, even to the point of having a security guard on the roof of local synagogues during services to ensure the highest level of preparedness and a faster response. There’s not a Jewish day school in America that hasn’t implemented new plans to protect children and students. Many of my Jewish friends have purchased firearms and training for self-defense.
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Boulder JCC to hold Wednesday evening vigil for Pearl Street attack victims Feds detain wife, 5 children of suspect in Boulder fire attack for deportation How the Boulder fire attack unfolded: Calm, confusion, chaos — ‘he’s out to kill’ ‘Antisemitic terror attack’ on Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall planned for a year, FBI says; 4 new victims found The Boulder attack should deepen Colorado’s support for the Jewish community (Editorial)There can be no sitting on the sidelines in the face of terrorism. Refusing to timely and unequivocally call terrorism by its name exacerbates why Jews are targeted. It is not simply a failure of vocabulary, but a failure of our collective responsibility to meet the gravity of the moment.
Jew hatred must be confronted as the serious threat it is, even when it hides behind the banner of “Free Palestine.” As Martin Luther King, Jr. aptly said, “in the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
Doug Friednash grew up in Denver and is a partner with the law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber and Schreck. He is the former chief of staff for Gov. John Hickenlooper.
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