I’ve never understood haters. People who make it their life’s work to demonize and hate others because they look different, speak a different language and have their own belief system always go out of their way to be miserable.

It just makes no sense to me on any level. And let’s not make the mistake of believing that hate only comes from one group of people or a single political party or entity. A few clicks on your phone or a computer will show all the examples of atrocities committed by all kinds of people against a variety of other people for all kinds of reasons.

But how does disliking a neighbor or someone you don’t know across town improve your life? How do people like that terrorist in Boulder, Colorado, and the double-murderer of two Jewish Embassy staffers in Washington become willing to maim and murder to advance their causes?

It used to be that we could feel comfortable that those types of things only happened in far-off places on the other side of the world. The 9/11 attacks changed that. But has the fact that so much time has passed since Sept. 11, 2001 made us too comfortable again?

Those recent terrorist acts — and others — have happened on our soil. Some believe that so-called “sleeper cells” are active in the United States and it’s only a matter of time before more terrorist acts are executed.

Syndicated columnist Ian Haworth asked a question in our Thursday edition. It echoed a thought I’ve had: Where is the national conversation on antisemitism?

President Donald Trump’s son-in-law is Jared Kushner, who is Jewish. So are Kushner’s three children with his life, Ivanka Trump.

U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, is Jewish. So is U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland-9th.

Trump is as outspoken as anyone currently alive. He also happens to be POTUS. Schumer and Raskin are among the most powerful and vocal people in Congress. Why aren’t these men — and other federal officials — making the growing antisemitism in America a primary issue?

Trump supporters will point to the arrest of the perpetrator, a man who overstayed his visa, in the Boulder attacks and the fact that the man’s family has been arrested and potentially deported.

In both the Boulder and Washington attacks, the suspects shouted “Free Palestine!” That might explain why these incidents are problematic for some Democrats. Many of them were — and are — supportive of continued anti-Israel protests on college campuses and elsewhere. They view the war in Gaza through the eyes of the Palestinians, and by extension, those of Hamas.

Democrats have also been extremely vocal about the arrests and deportations of people in the country illegally by ICE agents.

By some accounts, the flow of undocumented migrants across the southern border has declined to a trickle since Trump took office. That’s good, but what about the potential miscreants ­ and perhaps terrorists — who’ve already arrived here and are simply awaiting their day and their target?

No one believes that the majority of people who come to America to make a better life for themselves and their families are bad people. My paternal grandparents came to Ellis Island from Hungary. My grandfather became a coal miner outside Logan, West Virginia, then an auto worker for Ford in Detroit. My grandmother raised their family.

If you talk to those who come to America from other lands, you’ll hear similar stories. We have been a nation of immigrants. I’m only a second-generation American born and raised. I grew up hearing the adults in my family speaking full-on Hungarian or a combination of Hungarian and English. My grandmother had her accent until the day she died, but she was less an American than anyone I knew growing up. I can still hear her saying certain words and she’s been gone since 1991.

Most of us came from people like Gabor and Barbara Puskas. Trace your family back far enough and you realize that our roots began far away and we all ended up here.

That’s what makes protecting our citizens from those who would do us harm so difficult.

How can we tell the difference between people who came here to be part of our great melting pot and those who apparently came here to try to terrorize, hurt and kill innocent people because of hate?

How do we stop these attacks from happening? And do we have the will to do it?

Ed Puskas is editor of the Tribune Chronicle and The Vindicator. Reach him at 330-841-1786 or epuskas@tribtoday.com.

072924…R PUSKAS…Warren…07-29-24…Tribune Chronicle/Vindicator Editor Ed Puskas…by R. Michael Semple