Friday, May 23, 2025

05/23 Links Pt1: The tragic naiveté of liberal Jews; From the BLM riots to the DC shooting in five short years; The Deadly Lie Behind ‘Free Palestine’

From Ian:

Ruthie Blum: The tragic naiveté of liberal Jews
A young couple was executed in cold blood on Wednesday night, outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, 26—both staffers at the Israeli embassy—were leaving a cultural event promoting interfaith understanding when they were gunned down on the sidewalk.

The shooter, 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez of Chicago, shouted “Free, free Palestine” while being handcuffed by police. He subsequently boasted, “I did it for Gaza.”

Rodriguez, a radical-leftist activist, didn’t know anything about Lischinsky and Milgrim. Before obliterating them, he didn’t check what causes they supported. Nor did he delve into their positions on Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza.

Had he done so, he would have discovered that both were involved in advancing dialogue and building bridges. Lischinsky, a promising diplomat in the embassy’s political division, focused his efforts on outreach—engaging with D.C. think tanks, universities and faith communities—to present a more nuanced, human face of Israel.

Milgrim had spent years volunteering with coexistence initiatives. Her social-media pages were filled with photos from interfaith Passover seders, joint Arab-Jewish youth workshops and campus activities aimed at furthering peace and reconciliation.

But none of that mattered to Rodriguez or his many supporters online. It’s a phenomenon that follows a familiar pattern.

On Oct. 7, 2023, Israelis awoke to a nightmare that under any other circumstances would have shattered any illusions about the possibility of achieving some sort of equilibrium, let alone peace, with the enemies next door. That morning, Hamas terrorists and Gaza civilians stormed the border, gleefully raping, torturing, burning and butchering more than 1,200 men, women and children.

During the rampage, proudly documented by the perpetrators on cellphones and bodycams, the barbarians abducted 250 other innocents, 58 of whom remain in captivity, some alive and some dead.

Among the hardest hit on that fateful Shabbat-Simchat Torah weekend were residents of liberal/left-leaning kibbutzim and rave-goers attending the peace-and-love-themed Nova music festival.
Douglas Murray: DC killings show how Americans are being incited to kill Jews by anti-Israel propaganda
What did such groups and such individuals think about the consequences of their actions?

When they chanted to “globalize the intifada” they meant exactly what Rodriguez did.

They meant — and they mean — that the targeting of Jews by acts of terror should be brought from the Middle East here to America.

For the past year and a half many people — Jewish and non-Jewish — have warned about the escalation in anti-Jewish and anti-Israel activism in this country.

We have warned about the radical leftist groups — and the radical right-wing commentators — who have had a field-day appealing to the most base human bigotries.

When these people were accused of “blood libels” many of them decided to look into the claim and then tell their followers that Jews were in fact busily killing and using the blood of Christian children in the Middle Ages.

When people said that they sounded like they were celebrating a death cult they showed that they were proud of it.

The streets of DC, like the streets of this city, have resounded for 19 months to chants calling for the annihilation of the Jewish State and the killing of Jewish people.

It was allowed to go on despite the fact that no similar incitement would ever be allowed in this country against any other group.

Rodriguez does not appear to be a radical Muslim.

He is someone who has been radicalized in America by radical left groups that believe that killing Jews makes them ethical people.

Now radical groups in this country — often backed by Iran and Qatar — are praising him.

One regime papers in Qatar has already called for “A few more [people] like Rodriguez”

Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim spent their last day on earth trying to fight the lies and the hate.

They loved this country and said so often.

Whether America sides with the victims of this heinous act or with the culprit will tell us a lot about where America, as a society, goes next.
NYPost Editorial: DC antisemitic terror killings channel spirit of the campus protesters
Rodriguez, born and raised in America with no obvious link to the Middle East, is a man of the modern left, following in the footsteps not just of the “pro-Palestine” lunatic who recently firebombed the home of Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-Pa.) but also of Luigi Mangione, much lionized as the “health care” assassin.

Indeed, posts from what’s thought to be Rodriguez’s X account applaud Mangione and praise political violence; they include thinly veiled death threats to Jews as well as “Death to America.”

He’s a onetime member of the far-left Party for Socialism and Liberation, some of whose recent posters have forthrightly urged “Extreminate Zionists!”

In short, Rodriguez did just what all those college protesters have been demanding: “Globalize the intifada.”

No matter that Lischinsky was a Christian, nor that Milgrim worked on building peaceful collaborations between Palestinians and Israelis: Such details don’t matter to progressive haters.

What do you think? Post a comment.

Old-school right-wing antisemitism is still real and periodically deadly, but it’s astonishing how far the global left has interpenetrated with Islamist antisemitism: Hamas, after all, imposes sharia law in Gaza.

It’s not just the lust for violence that unites them, but a hatred for Western civilization.
The Deadly Lie Behind ‘Free Palestine’
Defeating the Death Cult
We must confront this honestly. The “Free Palestine” movement must be recognized for what it is. It was never a human rights movement. The calls for ceasefire were always disingenuous. We are not witnessing a protest for peace. We are witnessing a crusade to dehumanize and destroy. A "religion" that seeks a futile salvation through sacrificing Israel and the Jews as scapegoats of western sins. It must be treated as such, not only for the sake of Jews, but for the sake of Palestinians and for the soul of Western society.

Because here is the tragic irony: Palestinians will never be free until this death cult is defeated. Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and their Western enablers have done more to entrench Palestinian suffering than any Israeli policy. They need war. They need blood. They need to keep Palestinians trapped in permanent victimhood, because peace would mean they’re no longer needed.

If you care about peace, about the Palestinians, we must dismantle the “Free Palestine” movement. If you care about Jews, confront antisemitism with clarity, not euphemism. And if you care about Western civilization - pluralism, democracy, reason, dignity - understand this is your fight. Because what happened in Washington wasn’t an isolated tragedy. It was a warning.

And the question now is: will we hear it? Or will we keep pretending this cancer is a cause?


I Met Yaron Lischinsky the Day Before He Was Murdered
How do we repay the service and dedication of Yaron Lischinksy and his would-be fiancée Sarah Milgrim, a fellow embassy staffer murdered right beside him? One should study Jewish texts and undertake mitzvot in their memory, as the tradition teaches us to. Then we should look ahead to the predictable consequences of this horror and resist them as best we can.

Security, and the constant expectation of catastrophe that inspires our vast and expensive infrastructure of safety, are among the defining characteristics of American Jewish life in the 21st century. We are so used to going through a metal detector to enter a JCC or a synagogue that we no longer even think about the logic behind it or the possibility of any better way of living. Already it’s considered normal that Jewish and explicitly Israel-related events are conducted in quasi-secrecy, with their times and locations withheld until the last second. Israel-phobic intimidation has triumphed even in New York, where Israeli films don’t get screened, Israeli cultural events are scarcer than ever, and Israeli restaurants sometimes hide the national origin of the cuisine they serve. The murder of embassy staffers outside a Jewish museum a short walk from the National Mall is sure to hypercharge everyone’s worst fears, making us vulnerable to the rise of elaborate new bureaucracies, protocols, and mental habits that may never go away. But at no point in the past 5,000 years has it ever been risk-free to be a proud representative of the Jewish people. Total safety is an illusion—we can dream up novel ways of being quiet or careful, but we also know there are inherent risks to being who we are that no amount of caution or care can eliminate. Past a certain point, a safety obsession becomes a convenient alternative to dealing with other, tougher things.

One such thing, worthy of hard consideration: America is now a country where significant numbers of young people don’t really read, attend religious services, have sex, date, or even socialize, opening up a void of meaninglessness that destructive and often foreign agendas can fill. The alleged Washington killer is a 31-year-old activist who reportedly was affiliated at one point with the Chicago branch of the pro-China Party for Socialism and Liberation, which is one of the organizing forces for radical activists in cities across the U.S. A month ago, I wrote about how violent fantasies had become unremarkable within the anti-Israel scene in Pittsburgh, to the point that a Lebanese-born Air Force reservist and a local pastor’s daughter active in the city’s BDS movement built and detonated at least four homemade bombs as part of an inchoate plot against their Zionists enemies. A small but highly motivated contingent of our country’s anti-Israel extremists, brought together through conviction and a lack of any stronger motivator in life, believe the time for nonviolent protest has passed.

They are a threat to Jews and to American social harmony in general, but at least they understand the nature of the war they’ve convinced themselves, and each other, that they are in. Our enemies are dedicated people with a rapidly weakening sense of moral constraint. Thus they impose upon us the urgent need for an equal seriousness. They force us to face a hostile world without apology, without recklessness, without delusion, and without fear—to face it like the young man I met outside a hotel ballroom who had only 30 hours left.


They Came for Peace. Hate Was Waiting Outside.
My friend Jojo Kalin was one of the organizers, and my friends and I came to support her. Jojo is the kind of person whose presence lights up a room — radiant, generous, and lit from within by a hopefulness that feels contagious. True to form, she stood glowing at the podium as she introduced the evening’s speakers: representatives from the Multifaith Alliance and IsraAID — two organizations doing the hard, often invisible work of bringing aid to civilians in Gaza and elsewhere and imagining a future rooted in compassion and coexistence.

“Israelis and Gazans have far more in common than they do differences,” said the speaker from the Multifaith Alliance. And in that moment, it felt true — not just as a sentiment, but as a vision worth holding onto.

Later, I spoke with Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, who had come to the event out of the same belief that brought us all there: that peace is still possible, and still worth fighting for. I chatted with Yaron in Hebrew and English. I complimented Sarah’s beautiful, warm smile. I left the event a little early, waving at Yaron as I stepped out. My friends stayed behind.

And then — hate shattered everything.

The beautiful couple I had just spoken to were murdered outside the museum, moments after I left. “Free, free Palestine,” the terrorist shouted. And predictably, news outlets are calling him a “pro-Palestinian gunman,” despite the fact that slaughtering peacemakers in cold blood is inherently anti-Palestinian.

The bitter irony is unbearable. The entire event had, in its deepest spirit, been about freedom — freeing Gaza’s civilians from suffering, from violence, from the brutal grip of Hamas. It had been about dignity. About life.

I don’t have many words today. Only this: Hate has never — and will never — liberate anyone. It only destroys.

The ideology that led a man to kill two people devoted to coexistence is the same one that fuels pro-Hamas rhetoric on college campuses. It’s the same one Hamas itself preaches. And it will only reinforce the prisons, prolong the wars, and murder the very people trying to build a bridge out.

Real freedom isn’t won with slogans or bullets. It’s built — quietly, courageously — by people like Jojo, like Yaron and Sarah, who chose dialogue over division, light over darkness.

We owe it to them to remember that.
We owe it to them to keep building.


Where This Was Always Heading By Abe Greenwald
Via Commentary Newsletter sign up here American radicals have been moving toward the targeted killing of Jews ever since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. That was when every component of the leftist complex put all its resources into overtly championing Islamist terrorism and harassing Jews. The politicians, the universities, the media, the activist organizations, and the oligarchic backers all played their part in bringing the country to this point.

The universities, which had already been teaching anti-Americanism and Jew-hatred for decades, allowed pro-terrorist anti-Semitism to run wild on campus. Activist groups organized and supplied the mobs, all of it underwritten by the oligarchs. Democratic politicians, after opening the nation’s doors to foreign radicals who filled out the terror-supporting ranks, gave the campaign of destruction a gloss of legitimacy. Those in the Squad showed their outright support. And the media both characterized the proto-jihadists as well-meaning and continued to spread Hamas-authored disinformation about Israel.

Of course, money and other forms of support from overseas played a big role. The universities and activist organizations took whatever terror-supporting regimes were offering. That’s only because radical Americans have always thrilled at the possibility of partnering with those who want to destroy us, whether Stalinists or Islamists. As I’ve written before, they’re natural allies.

But the violent radicalization of Americans didn’t happen the way we thought it might. It didn’t come from deep analytical readings of Sayyid Qutb or from falling under the spell of a charismatic cleric. Leftists have become terrorist instruments of Islamism without any need of Islam itself. Their leftism is all the theology they need.

So more than two decades after 9/11, Gen Z Americans are going around praising Osama bin Laden, Hamasniks are flooding Times Square to call for intifada, and a socialist from Chicago admits to murdering two Jews before wrapping himself in the signature garb of Palestinian terrorism.

The group he’s linked to, PSL, wasn’t founded in Peshawar, Ismailia, or Raqqa. It was founded in the oh-so-peace-loving, hippy-dippy city of San Francisco. All the left is saying is, give jihad a chance.
Jonathan Tobin: From the BLM riots to the DC shooting in five short years
Nevertheless, it is impossible to imagine or understand how we have arrived at a moment in American history when the public square is awash in antisemitic discourse without comprehending how the spread of “progressive” ideas about race and identity since May 25, 2020, made it possible.

The ubiquity of pro-Hamas mobs on college campuses and the violence directed at Jews in the last 19 months culminating in the murders on May 21, 2025, are a direct result of the success that leftists have had in indoctrinating so many Americans in their doctrines. Only by convincing students and so many others, like Rodriguez, who are immersed in fashionable notions that smear Israelis and Jews and valorize Islamist terrorists, could these lies about Israel, Zionism and Jews become so popular. The process by which the left completed its long march through our institutions that culminated in the BLM summer led just as inevitably to the deaths of two young people in front of a Jewish venue.

That is why so many well-meaning liberals and groups like the American Jewish Committee and others who have expressed their horror at the murder of 30-year-old Yaron Lischinsky and 26-year-old Sarah Milgrim—the two murdered Israeli embassy staffers—are wrong to oppose President Donald Trump’s efforts to rid American higher education of woke ideologues, as well as to deport foreign students who have violated the terms of their visas by taking part in antisemitic lawbreaking. If there is to be a much-needed pushback against the post-Oct. 7 surge in Jew-hatred, it cannot be separated from the false leftist doctrines that fuel it. Trump is seeking to attack the root cause of this hatred while his liberal critics look away from it to stay in sync with their partisan allies.

The madness that took hold in the United States after the killing of Floyd was more than just the result of COVID counter-measures that induced mass hysteria or the spread of misinformation about police killings. And it was more than a deliberate attempt to undermine the enormous progress in race relations since the passage of federal civil-rights legislation in the 1970s. It was part of a broader neo-Marxist assault on Western civilization and the values of the American republic that had been percolating on the far left for decades. But beyond that, it was also a necessary element in the destructive process that led to the wave of leftist Jew-hatred that culminated in the shedding of innocent blood on American soil.

The best way to honor the victims and to ensure that such horrors are not repeated involves more than just turning all American Jewish institutions, synagogues and communal buildings into harder targets, necessary though that may be. It also means supporting the Trump administration’s vital campaign to punish those colleges and universities that have tolerated and enabled antisemitism and to guarantee that woke ideology no longer dominates them. We now know that those who chant for Jewish genocide abroad will, sooner or later, resort to the same sort of violence at home. The trail of these murders leads directly back not just to Oct. 7 but to the BLM summer of 2020. Ignoring that brutal fact will only lead to more hatred and bloodshed.
My peaceful hand was met with murder in woke Jewish Museum attack
Late Wednesday, two Israeli embassy staffers — Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, young diplomats in their 20s, soon to be engaged — were brutally shot to death in Washington, DC, after attending an event hosted by the American Jewish Committee for early-career foreign service officers.

I am gutted. That event is one I helped start nearly 20 years ago, when I served as AJC’s regional director.

The goal was simple: to promote understanding and reconciliation among rising diplomats from around the world, even from countries with historical tensions.

It was a model of bridge-building and peaceful coexistence. Now, it’s a crime scene.

Initial reports suggest the alleged assailant is affiliated not with a jihadist network, but with a radical socialist group called the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

It has previously endorsed violent anti-Israel protests and calls for “armed resistance” against what it calls Western imperialism.

This wasn’t an isolated outburst — it was a worldview made flesh.

What we’re witnessing is the deadly consequence of an ideological framework that categorizes people and nations into a rigid binary: oppressors and oppressed.

I warned in my 2022 book “Woke Antisemitism” of a disturbing trend I’d observed in progressive activist spaces. Increasingly in these circles, I saw that Jews — especially Zionist Jews — were being cast as inherently privileged and oppressive.

It didn’t take long for that slander to go from words to threats, as we’ve seen on our college campuses and city streets in the last two years.

Now it’s manifesting as murder.
Israeli Embassy terror bares the evil aimed at Jews — and America
How might we win this fight, the fight for American and Western civilization?

The answer is as simple as it is urgent.

We win by giving the Free Palestine brigades no quarter.

By rejecting candidates for office who support their cause and make excuses for their brutalities.

By demanding that institutions that foster them be denied any form of public funding and support.

By deporting every foreign national clucking about globalizing the intifada.

By demanding that our law enforcement authorities treat these keffiyeh-clad thugs as domestic terrorists deserve to be treated.

When a gaggle of rioters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, 6,000 agents were assigned to work the case.

The murder in DC this week is every bit as fundamental, foundational an assault on American democracy, and deserves equal or greater resources.

This shouldn’t be a hard concept for us to grasp. In 1871, facing another murderous, Jew-hating militia, the Ku Klux Klan, Congress passed the Enforcement Act that gave the government wide power to do everything necessary, from deploying federal troops to suspending habeas corpus, to defeat these homegrown terrorists.

It did so because Americans could unite behind the elementary idea that the Klan was pure evil and profoundly un-American. The same is true of Free Palestine.

As we mourn the victims, it’s safe to assume that many on the woke left and the woke right alike will unleash a torrent of bad-faith arguments, from laying the blame on Israel to lashing out at Trump.

The rest of us know better: Pro-Palestine is anti-America, and Free Palestine means death. We must fight it with everything we’ve got.
The Language of Violence
Consider, for example, the most recent furor over the baseless proclamation by UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher, when he stated on May 20 that as many as 14,000 children could die “within 48 hours.” Media outlets eagerly disseminated the headline, initiating an avalanche of social media outrage. The claim was retracted within a day, but the damage was already done. Every Jew was culpable for the genocidal massacre that never came to be. Even those attending an event promoting humanitarian aid for Gazans.

This is not an argument against criticism of Israel. Democratic societies require dissent, especially during war. But when criticism gives way to dehumanization, when rhetoric begins to erase distinctions between governments and civilians, between soldiers and conference attendees, it creates space for something darker to take root.

Language does not pull triggers. But it can lower the threshold. It can frame violence as resistance, strip moral complexity from tragedy, and turn ideology into justification. The murder of Sarah and Yaron was the latest, and perhaps the most chilling, example of what happens when the line between speech and action begins to erode.

It would be a mistake to dismiss this moment as an aberration. It reflects deeper currents: the collapse of moral distinctions in political discourse, the flattening of complex conflicts into binary and diametrically opposed narratives, and the alarming ease with which antisemitism finds new forms and new hosts. Even as the victims’ blood has not yet dried, a vocal and morally depraved segment of our society is showering praise on a murderer in the name of ‘justice’ across social media platforms.

We are not helpless in the face of this. We can demand better from our institutions, including our media, our universities, and our civic leaders. We can insist that movements committed to justice reject violence not only in action, but in word. And we can remember that empathy and precision are not weaknesses in debate—they are its foundation.
Alleged gunman shot 21 times, told police he bought ticket to Jewish event, per complaint
Police officers reviewed video footage of a person dressed “consistent with the clothing worn by Rodriguez” shooting two people outside the museum. After the two fell to the ground, per the complaint, Rodriguez is captured approaching, leaning over them and firing “several more times.” As Milgrim tried to crawl away, “he followed behind her and fired again,” the complaint alleges. When he seemed to reload, she sat up, and he then fired “several times” more at her.

The D.C. Department of Forensic Sciences subsequently found 21 used 9mm casings and the gun “with its slide locked, indicating that no ammunition was remaining.” The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives traced the recovered gun and found that Rodriguez bought it in Illinois on March 6, 2020, per the complaint.

Rodriguez told D.C. detectives that he admired “the actions of an individual who self-immolated in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 25, 2024, as a form of protest intended to draw attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” and “described this person’s actions as courageous and labeled him a ‘martyr,’” per the complaint.

“Rodriguez also stated that he had purchased a ticket to the event at the museum approximately three hours prior to its commencement,” it said.

The complaint added that Rodriguez flew on United Airlines from Chicago O’Hare International Airport to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on May 20 and declared that he had a gun in his checked baggage.


Shadowy Left-Wing Network Funded Elias Rodriguez’s Trip to ‘Resistance’ Convention
A radical left-wing group described as a "conduit" between the Chinese Communist Party and domestic anti-Israel groups raised money for Elias Rodriguez, the 30-year-old Chicago native who allegedly murdered two Israeli diplomats in Washington, D.C., to attend a "resistance" conference in September 2017. There, Rodriguez rubbed shoulders with "comrades" from pro-Hamas groups and other radical organizations, coming away impressed with their "commitment to actually getting things done," according to a video and an online fundraiser unearthed by the Washington Free Beacon.

Rodriguez’s attendance at the People’s Congress of Resistance provides insight into his early path towards radicalism, which culminated Wednesday night when Rodriguez allegedly assassinated Israeli diplomats Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim as they left an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C.

Witnesses said Rodriguez, 30, shouted "Free Palestine" after the shooting and waved a keffiyeh. Rodriguez reportedly admitted to the killings and has been charged with first-degree murder.

ANSWER Chicago, a subsidiary of the left-wing ANSWER Coalition, raised money to send Rodriguez to the People’s Congress of Resistance, a two-day conference at Howard University held to "chart a path of nationwide grassroots resistance and mobilization to defeat Trump's reactionary program of unrestrained capitalism." ANSWER Coalition, the anti-war group CODEPINK, and Samidoun, a pro-Hamas organization designated last year as a terrorist group, organized the resistance conference.

"Help us send Elias Rodriguez, a young resister and son of an Iraq war veteran, to the People's Congress of Resistance," ANSWER Chicago wrote in a social media post soliciting donations for Rodriguez.
Israeli Embassy Terrorist Promoted 'Anti-Zionist' Jewish Voice for Peace
The terrorist who gunned down a young couple in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday previously promoted a radical anti-Zionist group that claims to represent "peaceful" American Jews.

Elias Rodriguez—who fatally shot Israeli embassy staffers Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim outside the Capital Jewish Museum before screaming, "Free, free Palestine!"—shared social media posts boosting a pro-Hamas demonstration led by the Chicago chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), a group that describes itself as the "world's largest Jewish organization standing in solidarity with Palestine."

Rodriguez retweeted an X post from JVP advertising one of the group’s protests in Chicago in November 2023.

"BREAKING: Hundreds of American Jews and allies from the Midwest have rallied in Chicago to shutdown the Israeli consulate at Ogilvie Station," the post reads. "Our grief is being used to justify genocidal violence against the people of Gaza. We’re ready to stay here as long as it takes!!!"

The post includes an image of a few dozen masked JVP protesters, many of whom wear terrorist-style keffiyehs. The activists purported to be Jewish, wearing t-shirts that read "Not in Our Name" and carrying signs that said "Jews Say Ceasefire Now."

Photos from a police raid on Rodriguez’s home in Chicago on Thursday indicate his familiarity with JVP.

A hand-written sign displayed in Rodriguez’s window reads "Tikkun Olam Means Free Palestine," alongside a drawing of a Palestinian flag. Tikkun Olam is a Hebrew phrase that translates to "healing the world."

JVP often equates "Tikkun Olam" with opposing Israel’s existence. JVP’s Northwestern University chapter, close to Rodriguez’s home in Chicago, painted nearly the same phrase—"Tikkun Olam Says Free Palestine"—on a large rock on campus last October.

The news comes just months after the legal nonprofit National Jewish Advocacy Center filed a lawsuit against JVP on behalf of Hamas’s Oct. 7 victims, alleging that the organization, among other anti-Israel groups, acted as a "propaganda arm" for the terror group.
House Republicans Condemn ‘Evil’ Murder Of Israeli Embassy Staffers: ‘Antisemitic Terrorism’
A group of over 50 House Republicans on Friday introduced a resolution condemning the murder of Israeli embassy staffers Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky.

“This wasn’t just a tragedy, it was a targeted act of antisemitic terrorism carried out by a radical leftist,” Rep. Addison McDowell, who introduced the resolution, told The Daily Wire.

“Yaron and Sarah were murdered for being Jewish and for believing in peace. When a movement sympathizes with terrorists, we shouldn’t be surprised when that same movement produces actual terrorists.”

Elias Rodriguez, 30, of Chicago, was detained by police on suspicion of murdering Lischinsky, 30, and Milgrim, 26, on Wednesday night in Washington, D.C. The couple was shot at close range, and Milgrim was shot multiple times while crawling away, according to court documents. According to police, the terrorist told officers he “did it for Palestine.”

No Democrats signed on to the resolution.

Cosponsors of the bill include heavy hitters like Reps. Lisa McClain (R-MI), Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA), and Max Miller (R-OH), who is Jewish.

McDowell said he introduced the resolution to condemn growing antisemitism and to honor the lives of the slain couple.

“I want Congress to be on the record that it’s not just that antisemitism is evil, but also that the killer was part of an evil movement that seems to be growing in our country,” he said. “We can’t paper over that. We need to address it head on.”
Pro-Israel leaders link anti-Israel radicalism to fatal shooting
Pro-Israel leaders in the United States on Thursday connected the murder of two Israeli Embassy employees outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington to the anti-Israel advocacy seen on the political extremes throughout the country since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, characterizing it as a culmination of such rhetoric and, in some cases, the failure of some politicians to denounce it.

The suspected shooter, Elias Rodriguez, shouted “free, free Palestine” and “I did it for Gaza” following the shooting, according to an eyewitness and video from the arrest. He reportedly published a manifesto railing against Israel.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) said that the attack should be a signal to the left that it needs to rethink its rhetoric on Israel and Zionism. He compared the anti-Israel movement in the United States to a “cult” that has been stoked online and is using inherently violent slogans while its members “try to hide behind this idea that it’s free speech to intimidate and terrorize members of the Jewish community.”

He said that too many on the left have failed to call out antisemitism in the anti-Israel movement.

“Why can’t you just call it what it is, and then address and assert the pressure on the aggressor,” which is Hamas,” Fetterman said. “I can’t even imagine having to live with that ever-present antisemitism and what? Why can’t people just acknowledge and call that what it is?”

Fetterman predicted that the same elements of the left that have supported Luigi Mangione, the alleged assassin of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, will also rally behind Rodriguez.

“What part of my party does this come from where it’s like, we try to defend or try to justify assassinating an executive in broad daylight or … somebody [who] guns down” two people at a Jewish event, Fetterman asked incredulously.
Sen. Cornyn calls for investigation of organizations affiliated with alleged shooter
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) called on the Justice Department and the FBI to investigate the political organizations that Elias Rodriguez, the suspect in the fatal shooting of two Israeli Embassy staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum, claims to be an active member of.

Cornyn made the call in a post on X on Thursday that federal authorities should investigate the organizations allegedly affiliated with Rodriguez and the funding networks that finance their operations. The Texas senator was responding to a post alleging Rodriguez has ties to groups including the Party for Socialism and Liberation, People’s Congress of Resistance and ANSWER Chicago.

“Every single one of these groups and their funding should be investigated immediately. This attack goes beyond antisemitism. We must know if this is domestic terrorism,” Cornyn said, adding that he was confident Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel “will get to the bottom of this threat.”

Speaking to Newsmax on Thursday, Cornyn applauded the Trump administration for taking an aggressive approach to addressing the surge of domestic antisemitism since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel. “There’s been a course correction since the election of President Trump,” he told the network.

“We have a new sheriff in town. We have a new attorney general, a new FBI director that can aggressively do investigations and prosecute individuals who violate the rights of our Jewish citizens, and I think that will go a long way to correcting the direction that we have been on for the last four years,” Cornyn said.

“A lot of the woke programs and policies of universities across this country were a big surprise to a lot of people — the blatant antisemitism in particular, the targeting of Jewish students. This is unacceptable,” he continued.
10 Dems in Congress decry ‘all forms of hate’ after murder of Israeli embassy staffers in DC
In the hours after a gunman shot and killed two Israeli embassy staffers as they left an event at the Capital Jewish Museum, less than a mile from the U.S. Capitol and some 1.3 miles from the White House, 10 congressional Democrats decried not only Jew-hatred but also “all forms of hate,” and one congressman mentioned Islamophobia in his statement.

“As we await additional details, one thing remains clear: antisemitism has no place in our country, and we need to take action to put an end to this vile hate as violence worsens both at home and around the globe,” stated Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.).

“In the days since the Oct. 7 attack, we’ve seen an undeniable rise in antisemitism and hate crimes. Antisemitism, along with Islamophobia and other forms of ethno-religious hatred, have festered far too long in the United States,” Huffman stated. “We cannot allow violent extremists—or their enablers—to sow hatred and threaten our communities. I condemn these tragic murders and all other antisemitic hate crimes unequivocally and unconditionally.”

“We must also reaffirm our commitment to confronting and eliminating all ethno-religious hatred and political violence once and for all,” he added. “I will continue fighting back unequivocally against ethno-religious hate and political violence in all its forms and locations.”
Commentary Podcast: How to Fight the Homefront Intifada
Jonathan Schanzer joins the podcast to talk about efforts to combat the possible wave of anti-Jewish violence in America that might be triggered by the murders at the Capital Jewish Museum and whether the Trump administration's bludgeoning of Harvard is a wise strategy.


Honestly with Bari Weiss: Welcome to the Global Intifada
Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Milgrim, 26, were staffers at the Israeli Embassy. They had just planned a trip for Sarah to meet Yaron’s parents. He had recently bought an engagement ring.

Then on Wednesday night, they were murdered outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. The suspect, 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez, told police: “I did it for Palestine. I did it for Gaza.”

Since its founding, The Free Press has reported on the rise of this kind of radicalism and a culture that has embraced violence as a means of expression, that has lost hold of the difference between life and death.

Today, Bari reflects on the climate we now find ourselves in—and the deafening silence from mainstream media and pop culture.


Ben Shapiro: Radical Leftist Terrorist Kills Israeli Embassy Couple in HORRIFIC D.C. Shooting
Ben Shapiro breaks down the horrifying terrorist attack yesterday outside the Capitol Jewish Museum in D.C.


“A Horrific Humanitarian Situation” | Israeli PM Netanyahu Accuses Starmer Of Siding With Hamas
Talk’s Peter Cardwell is joined by freelance journalist Nocole Lampert to discuss reports that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Keir Starmer and other world leaders of siding with Hamas following the murder of two Israeli embassy staff in Washington, DC.

Nicole says, “It was horrendous to wake up to, but didn’t feel surprising at all.”




Dad of suspected terrorist Elias Rodriguez was invited to Trump address by left-wing Democratic lawmaker
The father of the terror suspect accused of gunning down two soon-to-be-engaged Israeli Embassy staffers at the Capital Jewish Museum was honored by a far-left member of Congress with an invitation to President Trump’s joint address this past March, The Post has exclusively learned.

“Eric Rodriguez was our guest during the President’s Joint Speech to Congress, but we don’t know his family,” a spokesperson for Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García (D-Ill.) told The Post Thursday night.

In March, he hailed Rodriguez as “an outspoken advocate against attacks on veterans’ services and the rights of unionized federal employees.”

“Eric represents the very best of our community — someone who has served his country, continues to serve his fellow veterans and fights every day to protect the dignity of working people,” the congressman said in a statement at the time.

“His presence at the Joint Address is a powerful statement: we will not sit back while veterans and workers are treated as political pawns.” Explore More

Rodriguez also appeared in a Service Employees International Union video that same day, and said he was an Iraq War vet and an employee with the Veterans Affairs Department, the New York Times reported.

“I’ve been with the VA for three years, and the reason why I’m in Washington, DC, is because I’m concerned about what Donald Trump, Elon Musk and DOGE are doing to the VA system.”

On Thursday, Rodriguez’s son, Elias, was charged in federal court with two counts of first-degree murder and other charges in the cold-blooded slayings of Yaron Lischinsky, 28, and Sarah Milgrim, 26, as the Israeli Embassy employees left an event at the Capital Jewish Museum.
Cam Higby: I Investigated The DC Shooter, What I Found Will Leave You SPEECHLESS!
I hope you enjoyed! For more of my content follow me on my other platforms! I am really looking to build my discord community so that you all can have as much fun debating each other as I do and hone your skills. everyone is welcome regardless of political affiliation.




Anti-Israel group that helped incite Columbia library takeover praises DC shooter: ‘an act of solidarity and love’
A rabid anti-Israel hate group accused of helping to incite a Columbia University library takeover is now praising alleged DC Jewish Museum shooter Elias Rodriguez’s heinous crime as an act of “love.”

The notorious radical Unity of Fields also touted and provided a link to Rodriguez’s reported hate-fueled manifesto titled, “ESCALATE FOR GAZA, BRING THE WAR HOME.’’

“What Elias Rodriguez did was an act of solidarity and love for the Palestinian people,’’ the extreme lefty organization wrote on X Friday.

“If this seems crazy and unhinged to you, ask yourself why you are so well adjusted to a constant stream of disemboweled and starving children — made possible by the country in which you reside.”

Rodriguez, 31, of Chicago, allegedly gunned down soon-to-be-engaged Jewish couple Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Milgrim, 26, outside the museum Wednesday night after an event aimed at fostering peace.

The homegrown radical continued to shoot Milgrim even as she lay mortally wounded on the ground and tried to crawl away, authorities said.

Rodriguez admitted to authorities minutes later that he was the shooter, shouting “Free, free Palestine!”

Unity of Fields called the accused double-killer a “political prisoner.

“And the people defending him the hardest, like us, are people also facing repression,’’ it seethed on X on Thursday.

“We don’t condemn armed resistance,’’ it wrote. “We don’t condemn direct action. We back the left and want this energy to be more organized as opposed to shunned and isolated.”

In touting Rodriguez’s purported manifesto, the group posted a section of the suspect’s twisted screed:

“Those of us against the genocide take satisfaction in arguing that the perpetrators and abettors have forfeited their humanity. I sympathize with this viewpoint and understand its value in soothing the psyche which cannot bear to accept the atrocities it witnesses, even mediated through the screen. But inhumanity has long since shown itself to be shockingly common, mundane, prosaically human.”

Unity of Fields is the same group that put out fliers lionizing a Palestinian terrorist — leaflets that were passed around as anti-Israel protesters stormed Columbia’s Butler Library on May 7.

The shadowy organization, formerly known as Palestine Action US, was also behind a despicable anarchist how-to guide that started circulating among Columbia students earlier this year.


Far-left, anti-Israel Bronx activist group shockingly cheers accused DC Jewish Museum terrorist, encourages more violence
A far-left, anti-Israel group in the Bronx cheered the suspected terrorist accused of gunning down the two Israeli Embassy staffers in an antisemitic attack.

The Bronx Anti-War group said what alleged gunman Elias Rodriguez “did is the highest expression of anti-Zionism” and “We need more Elias Rodriguez in this world” in a pair of social media posts Thursday.

The shocking statements quickly drew fire from Bronx Rep. Ritchie Torres.

“The Bronx Anti-War coalition, which has been harassing me since October 7th, has described the murderous targeting of Jews as ‘the highest expression of anti-Zionism,’” Torres said in a statement.

“Violence is not a bug but a feature of virulent Anti-Zionism.”

Rodriguez, 31, was charged with fatally shooting Sarah Milgrim and her boyfriend, Yaron Lischinsky, shortly after 9 p.m. Wednesday outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC.

The coalition is described as a Bronx-based group made up of working-class people who are anti-imperialist and led by people of color. They push for “resisting state violence while advancing decolonization.”

The group insists on its website that it backs the “right to resist colonial imperialism by any means necessary, including armed struggle.”

“We are not a pacifist movement and believe there can be no peace without justice,” the group said.

The group, which has about 3,400 followers on X, only 200 followers on Facebook and a seemingly defunct Instagram account, also called for Israel to be abolished.


Baby-faced anti-Israel teen urges his 1M followers to support suspected DC terrorist in rant so vile TikTok pulled it —then doubles down on hate
An anti-Israel teen with nearly a million online followers urged people to “support’’ the accused DC killer in a rant so vile that TikTok yanked it — and he then doubled-down on his comments to The Post.

Guy Christensen — a baby-faced, keffiyeh-wearing 19-year-old from Pennsylvania who goes by the online handle “YourFavoriteGuy’’ — said in Thursday’s video, “I want to urge you first to support Elias’ actions.”

He was referring to Elias Rodriguez, the 31-year-old alleged hate-filled assassin who gunned down the two Israeli Embassy diplomats leaving an event in DC on Wednesday night.

Christensen, asked by The Post if this could be interpreted as saying he supports the killing of the victims, replied, “I think the only people who are interpreting [that] as such are the people’’ who are using the slayings of “those two Zionist officials … as a pretense to silence critics of Israel.”

The teen — in the TikTok footage that garnered more than 632,500 views before being taken down — called the dead victim, Yaron Lischinsky, 30, a “war criminal.

“And the same was true for the woman,’’ he said, referring to Lischinsky’s slain girlfriend, Sarah Milgrim, 26.

Christensen, a college freshman who refused to say where he goes to school, added to The Post by phone, “You will not hear me sympathize with war criminals.’’

The young man also insisted Rodriguez was “not a terrorist.

“He is a resistance fighter,’’ the teen said.

In his video, Christensen had said, “I do not condemn the elimination of those two Zionist officials who worked at the Israeli Embassy last night … and here’s why.

“Israel has a live-streamed a genocide to the entire world the last two years,’’ he said.

“You can not expect to such a thing in this world without the people standing up to fight to stop you in any way they can, to resist against you.’’

He added to The Post, “I think it’s very shameful that the media would rather cover Elias Rodriguez over the death of hundreds of Palestinians yesterday.’’

TikTok still had Christensen’s inflammatory video up early Friday afternoon.

Christensen has 321,000 TikTok followers, 419,000 Instagram followers and 88,500 followers on X.




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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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