By Karen Amouyal
This wasn’t just a crime. It was a message: If you stand against the radical Left, if you refuse to parrot its ideology, your life may no longer be safe.
Charlie Kirk with Morton Klein, touring Jerusalem together
(September 14, 2025 / JPost) Charlie Kirk was murdered for daring to speak. Let that sink in. He stood on stage, under a banner that read “Prove Me Wrong,” and instead of debate, he was met with a sniper’s bullet.
This wasn’t just a crime. It was a message: If you stand against the radical Left, if you refuse to parrot its ideology, your life may no longer be safe.
For years, we have watched this pattern unfold: conservative students shouted down in classrooms, events canceled because protesters threatened to burn the building down, professors fired for uttering one “unacceptable” sentence, and social media mobs erasing reputations overnight. First, it was cancel culture, then intimidation. Now it’s murder. What more proof do we need that America has a left-wing violence epidemic?
I’m tired of the excuses. Every time, we hear the same tired line: “Oh, but the Right is violent too.” Yes, there are extremists everywhere. But let’s stop pretending this absolves the Left. A bullet is a bullet, no matter who pulls the trigger. And this bullet was aimed at a conservative voice who refused to be silenced.
The Left loves to claim the mantle of tolerance, inclusion, and diversity, but look closely at what’s happening. Tolerance now means “agree with us or else.” Inclusion means “your views are excluded.” Diversity means “different skin tones, same thoughts.” And when words aren’t enough to keep people in line, fists, fire, and now rifles are.
Charlie Kirk’s assassination is not an isolated act. It is the culmination of years of demonization, where anyone who challenges progressive dogma is labeled a fascist, a bigot, an enemy of humanity itself. Once you dehumanize your opponent, violence becomes not only possible but righteous.
We must call left-wing violence what it is: political terrorism.
This is America: Where standing onstage with an opinion makes you a target
This is America today: A place where debate is dangerous, where standing on a stage with a microphone makes you a target. If we don’t speak now, louder than ever, we will wake up to a society where violence isn’t the exception but the rule.
We must refuse to accept this. We must call left-wing violence what it is: political terrorism. We must demand that universities protect speakers instead of surrendering to mobs. We must insist that the media report left-wing extremism with the same outrage they reserve for the Right. We must say clearly: no idea, no ideology, no cause is a reason to be murdered.
Charlie Kirk’s voice was silenced. If we don’t defend the right to speak, even for those whom we disagree with, then the sniper ended more than one life that day. He ended the future of free speech itself. And that is something we cannot allow.
Karen Amouyal is the social media manager for the Zionist Organization of America’s Campus department.
This op-ed was originally published in the Jerusalem Post and can be viewed here.