05/22/2025
In May 2014, I was in Brussels on the Sunday following the Jewish Museum of Belgium attack. I had traveled for a church commitment, and while I wasn’t near the museum itself, I felt the spiritual weight in the city — the silence, the unease, and the indifference of the West.
On Saturday, May 24, 2014, around 4:00 p.m., a gunman entered the Jewish Museum of Belgium in central Brussels and opened fire. Emmanuel and Mira Riva were an Israeli couple from Tel Aviv — a beautiful, vibrant family — visiting Brussels on a private walking tour when the attack occurred. They were among the four victims killed. The attack lasted just under two minutes but was devastating.
Four people were killed in the assault: Emmanuel and Mira Riva, an Israeli couple visiting from Tel Aviv; Dominique Sabrier, a French volunteer at the museum; and Alexandre Strens, a Belgian museum staff member of Jewish and Muslim heritage. Surveillance cameras captured the attacker carrying a duffel bag and calmly executing the victims before fleeing.
Six days later, French authorities arrested 29-year-old Mehdi Nemmouche in Marseille. A French national of Algerian descent, he had recently returned from Syria, where he reportedly fought alongside ISIS-linked jihadist groups. He was already known to French intelligence for his radicalization during a previous prison term. At the time of his arrest, Nemmouche was carrying the same weapons used in the attack and a video in which he claimed responsibility.
This was the first ISIS-inspired terror attack on European soil — and it targeted Jews. Not political institutions. Not military figures. Jews.
And it should be seen as a warning. If we do not act — with truth, with vigilance, with prayer — we risk seeing this same pattern take root and escalate on American soil. The precedent has already been set.
And yet, Europe barely responded.
The atmosphere was undeniable. I saw the pattern then — clearly marked by the targeting of Jews simply for who they are. And I see it again now — sharpened, more exposed, and still met with disturbing silence.
Now, 11 years later — again in May — I am witnessing covenant-targeted violence manifest in Washington, D.C. Just days ago, a young couple — Yaron Lischinsky, a Messianic Jew and Israeli diplomat, and Sarah Milgrim, a Jewish American from Kansas — were gunned down outside the Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., after attending an official reception hosted by the Israeli Embassy. The shooter, Elias Rodriguez, reportedly radicalized through online propaganda, executed them at close range while shouting “Free Palestine.” The brutality was recorded, the motive clear. This was not simply political — it was deeply antisemitic. Their deaths highlight the rising danger to Jewish communities worldwide. It was a covenant-targeted killing, carried out in the open, on American soil.
It is not coincidence. It is convergence.
I wrote last Sunday in “A Sobering Sign in Washington” that the White House had officially appointed two Islamic leaders — one a former convict linked to a jihadist group — to a Religious Liberty Advisory Board. I warned then: this is not liberty. It is spiritual compromise, masked as inclusion.
Now, as Israel is under siege on all fronts — and the American government is slowly but publicly shifting tone — the assassination of two Israeli officials on U.S. soil should have triggered widespread public and political condemnation. While the incident has been acknowledged as antisemitic by some officials, the broader national response has remained strikingly muted.
I watched this same pattern take root in Europe: appeasement disguised as diplomacy, language slowly redefined, and truth rebranded as intolerance. It infiltrated every level of society — from government to media, and eventually into the Church.
In 2014, it was a vibrant couple of tourists from Tel Aviv. In 2025, it was a young couple — just about to be married — serving as diplomats. And in both cases, they were tied to a Jewish museum.
I have always said: they come for the Jews first, then the Christians. We are watching it unfold.
Here in Israel, I am also following the grief of the family of the young man who was killed — a Jewish believer in Yeshua. The pain is real, and the warning is louder than ever.
And both in May.
The timing is prophetic. The silence is deafening.
I believe this is a call to the Church in America: Wake up. We cannot allow the door of compromise to open further. We must return to the Judeo-Christian foundation that once shaped this nation. Not for nationalism, but for covenant.
Israel is not just a foreign policy issue. It is the heart of biblical prophecy — and what we bless or curse will shape our own future.
The fact that these diplomats were Israeli. That one may have been a Messianic believer. That they were murdered in America. And that all of this unfolds just days after radical voices are elevated under the banner of “religious liberty” — none of this is random.
This is a pattern.
And the pattern is the message.
Let the Church not fall asleep at the gate. Let us not repeat the mistakes of Europe. Let us not excuse spiritual warfare as political nuance.
It’s a script I’ve seen before.
If we, as the Body of Christ, do not take our place now — in prayer, in clarity, and in boldness — we will see this unfold again. And next time, it will be darker. The window to stand in covenant truth is open, but it is narrowing.
We must return.
Before what I saw before becomes what I see again — only greater.
I am in Jerusalem as this unfolds. And what we are seeing now is not simply hatred, but global distortion. Nations are turning on Israel not for aggression, but for defending itself. France, the UK, and Canada have publicly condemned Israel’s operations — not Hamas terror, not the October 7 atrocities, but the very right of Israel to defend its people.
Meanwhile in the U.S., former President Trump has repeated claims that Gaza is starving — statements disconnected from the facts on the ground. According to reports, this narrative was shaped in part by a deal brokered by Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, in exchange for the release of Edan Alexander. The tradeoff? Increased U.S. pressure on Israel to open humanitarian corridors into Gaza — corridors often exploited by Hamas to regroup and rearm. While positioned as diplomacy, the result has been to amplify a storyline of starvation — one that is widely disputed and shaped by conflicting sources, including Hamas propaganda.
The language of appeasement is rising. I saw it before. I am seeing it again.
Sources:
• Fox News: “Gunman in Brussels Jewish Museum shooting convicted” — https://www.foxnews.com/world/brussels-jewish-museum-shooting-verdict
• BBC News: “Belgian Jewish Museum Shooting: Mehdi Nemmouche Guilty” — https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48348979
• Newsmax: “2 Israeli Diplomats Gunned Down Outside Jewish Museum in DC” — https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/israel-embassy-dc-shooting/2025/05/21/...
• Times of Israel: General reporting on attack — https://www.timesofisrael.com
• The Guardian: “Trump: People in Gaza are starving, we’re going to take care of it” — https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/16/donald-trump-people-gaza-s...
• Reuters: “Trump says people are starving in Gaza during Middle East trip” — https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/deadly-israeli-strikes-pound-g...