Democrats in Olympia show bias in selective outrage over deaths of University of Washington alum in Middle East

Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi was killed during a Palestinian riot against Israeli troops in September 2024. Hayim Katsman, a UW Ph.D. alumnus and peace activist, was murdered by Hamas on October 7, 2023, after shielding others with his body.

Socialist State Senator Rebecca Saldana and Democratic Rep Tina Orwall have pre-filed legislation to call for the federal government to open an independent US-led probe into the death of University of Washington (UW) alumna Eygi. Additionally, Democrats in the Washington State Legislature are moving a formal memorial demanding exactly the investigation, describing Eygi’s life story, activism, and the circumstances of her killing as “unprovoked,” and insisting the United States must investigate.

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But Katsman was killed, Washington Democrats did not rally the same investigative urgency, nor call for an investigation in legislation, nor flood the press with demands for accountability.

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Both Eygi and Katsman were students at the University of Washington. Both deaths were international tragedies, yet only one case became a cause célèbre for Washington Democrats.

Eygi, a 26-year-old from Seattle, was volunteering with the anti-Israel International Solidarity Movement, a group that supports Palestinian "resistance," also known as terrorist attacks, in the West Bank when she was killed on Sept. 6 during a riot. An inquiry by the Israel Defense Forces found that it was “highly likely that she was hit indirectly and unintentionally by IDF fire, which was not aimed at her, but aimed at the key instigator of the riot.” According to the IDF, “The incident took place during a violent riot in which dozens of Palestinian suspects burned tires and hurled rocks toward security forces at the Beita Junction.” Additionally, the IDF expressed “its deepest regret over the death of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi.”

Even after Israel publicly released the results of the initial inquiry, leading Democrats pressed the Biden administration for an independent investigation. Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Pramila Jayapal publicly requested “an immediate, transparent, credible, and thorough” probe. Now, over a year later, Democrats in the Washington Legislature are once again calling for a US-led investigation into Eygi’s killing by Israeli military forces.

Meanwhile, Katsman’s death, at the hands of Hamas terrorists during the October 7 massacre, did not receive similar demands from the same political class for investigation, accountability, or international scrutiny. Katsman was a peace activist and scholar, killed in his home during the Hamas assault. Only his family and UW’s Jackson School mourned him as a Ph.D. graduate killed in the attacks.

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No calls for an investigation. No statements or investigations from Hamas or the Palestinian Authority. No Democratic politicians are demanding answers. Why does the death of one UW student merit a political campaign, and the other barely a whisper? Let’s be clear: it’s not wrong to demand answers in Eygi’s killing. A US citizen died abroad; that should trigger concern, scrutiny, and diplomatic pressure. But Washington Democrats treat Eygi, who went looking for conflict, as a hero, while treating Katsman, who actually died heroically, as a footnote. Eygi’s death fits a narrative many progressive politicians and antisemitic activists are eager to amplify: Israel as villain, Palestinians as victims, America as complicit.

Katsman’s death complicates that storyline—because he was murdered by Hamas, and because he himself was a peace activist whose life undermines the caricature of Israelis and Jews drawn by the left as one-dimensional oppressors. Eygi chose to go to an armed conflict. Katsman was at home when terrorists broke in on a Jewish holiday. If terrorists hadn't massacred Hayim along with 1,200 others and kidnapped over 250, Eygi likely would never have been radicalized on UW's campus to go to the West Bank.

The left views Katsman’s death as inconvenient and Eygi’s as politically useful. Investigate cannot mean only when my preferred villain is in my crosshairs. Washington Democrats’ memorial for Eygi insists accountability is imperative for all US citizens killed abroad. If they mean it, they should act like it. Hamas’s October 7 attack is one of the most documented mass terror events in modern history. That doesn’t mean questions don’t exist—about funding networks, international enablers, failures of intelligence, and the global architecture that allowed the massacre to occur. And it certainly doesn’t mean elected officials should be selectively silent depending on whether the culprit aligns with their activist coalition.

If Washington Democrats can mobilize activists, letters, memorials, and media for one UW alum, they can do it for another. If they can demand “independent investigation” when the accused is Israeli, they can demand it when the perpetrators are Hamas terrorists. Otherwise, the message is: Some lives are worth more political effort than others, especially if one is a Turkish-American and the other is a Jewish American. That's hypocrisy dressed up as virtue.

Democrats like Murray, Jayapal, and Cantwell are not random Twitter activists; they are among Washington’s most powerful political figures. Saldaña and Orwall are influential lawmakers in Olympia. All of them know how to apply pressure when they want to. So when they pick and choose which UW deaths deserve the full “justice” treatment, they are not making a principled stand. They are making a political calculation, and in doing so, they are teaching Jews, Israelis, and anyone who refuses ideological conformity a bitter lesson: Your tragedies will be acknowledged only if they can be repurposed into our narrative.

A Washington politician doesn’t need to agree with every policy of the Israeli government to say clearly: Hayim Katsman mattered, and his death demanded moral clarity.

Likewise, recognizing Katsman does not diminish Eygi. If anything, it restores the only framework that can provide equal accountability, but Washington Democrats seem unable, or unwilling, to offer that. That isn’t justice, it’s political opportunism.