Free Elias Rodriguez!

On 22 May 2025, two staffers from the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. were shot and killed as they left an event at the Capitol Jewish Museum where many political and diplomatic officials were in attendance. The alleged shooter, Elias Rodriguez, remained at the scene and peacefully turned emself in shortly after police arrived to collect witness statements by announcing “I did it. I did it for Gaza.” As Rodriguez was led away in handcuffs, ey repeatedly shouted “Free Palestine!”. These details alone should make it clear that this targeted shooting of embassy staff was in no way motivated by racial hatred against Jewish people, but rather an act of armed protest for the ongoing genocide in Palestine.

However, the bourgeois press and zionist propaganda machine immediately began stirring up great outrage about the assassinations, calling the attack “anti-semitic”, “inhuman”, and other such vitriolic slander. This kind of absurd and distorted language about anti-semitism also appears in the U.$. “Justice” Department’s official press release and criminal complaint. Rodriguez is now facing a litany of charges, which will almost certainly result in a show trial where ey is found guilty and sentenced to a lifetime of imprisonment or possibly even execution (D.C.’s attorney general has called the case “death penalty eligible”).

The bourgeois propaganda has also been spilling crocodile tears over the “tragic” death of these two staffers, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, placing a great deal of focus on how they were set to be engaged soon, and photos of their young, white, expensively-dressed selves at galas decorated with yellow ribbons (a symbol used by zionists to commemorate their hostages). Unsurprisingly, little attention has been given to inconvenient details that do not fit the narrative of this being an act of senseless anti-semitic violence. Yaron Lischinsky was not even Jewish, but was in fact a “Messianic Christian” from Germany who migrated to Israel and began working for the settler regime there as a teenager, presumably out of devotion to this bizarre and fascistic apocalyptic mythology combined with an old-fashioned love for apartheid that is still very much thriving in Germany. Sarah Milgram was an Amerikan Jew from Kansas who was working at the Israeli embassy in the public diplomacy department, coordinating and overseeing local delegations to Israel. Lischinsky was employed as a “researcher” in the embassy’s political directorate. Another detail that has been conveniently brushed under the rug in bourgeois propaganda about their engagement is that their marriage would not have been legally recognized in Israel due to its Jewish supremacist apartheid laws forbidding interfaith marriage between Jews and non-Jews.

The event the two had been attending is being branded as a gala dedicated to “humanitarian aid” in the Middle East. The event’s theme was, according to its organizers, “turning pain into purpose”; which ironically works better as a description for how Rodriguez interprets eir own actions than anything a gala for fascists could possibly achieve. We recognize, as savvy readers should, that the kind of “humanitarian aid” the imperialists love talking about is itself a weapon of control that is currently being used to massacre starving Palestinians who attempt to access the meager supply convoys that Israel and Amerika decide to allow into Gaza.(1)

Rodriguez’s explanation

Thankfully, we can readily expose any suggestions about this being an instance of “anti-semitic violence” as the fascist slander that it is. This is because Rodriguez had the foresight to prepare a written “explication” where ey explains how this targeted shooting of Israeli embassy staff was a political response to the ongoing I$raeli genocide in Gaza and offers eir own interpretation of how such an act ought to be understood.

In this manifesto, which was published online by an independent journalist shortly after the shooting (resulting in an FBI visit to eir home), Rodriguez describes eir “armed action” as being a matter of “theater and spectacle, a quality it shares with many unarmed actions.”(2) This is contrasted with a “military action”, which is (presumably) defined by its relationship to concrete tactical and strategic objectives of an armed and organized political force. Ey draws a comparison to an assassination attempt against Robert McNamara in 1972, where an individual similarly outraged by the “impunity and arrogance he saw in that butcher of Vietnam as he sat in the ferry’s lounge laughing with friends” tried to throw the former U.$. Secretary of Defense and architect of the Vietnam War into the sea from the catwalk of the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard. We could also draw a comparison between Rodriguez’s action and the 1938 assassination of Nazi German Foreign Office diplomat Ernst vom Rath in Paris by a Jewish teenager, an act of protest against the forced deportation of Jews from Germany. Rodriguez does not cite this example emself, but we think it should be understood in the same moral context.

Rodriguez concludes eir explanation with “a word about the morality of armed demonstration”, which argues that eir action “would have been morally justified [if] taken 11 years ago during Protective Edge” even if it would have been “illegibile” and “seem insane” to most Amerikans at the time. This is contrasted with eir hope that many today will understand eir action as being “highly legible and, in some funny way, the only sane thing to do.” While we can understand and perhaps even share in this hope, we ultimately do not care what is legible or acceptable to a majority of the oppressor. We care about what actually moves humynity toward communism. What we can say for certain is that the action is legible to the masses, even though it does not concretely advance the revolutionary struggle.

More details about Elias Rodriguez’s political views and persynal life have since emerged from leaked chat messages and journalists interviewing eir acquaintances.(3) There is, yet again, no indication whatsoever from anything ey ever wrote that would corroborate bourgeois slanders about “anti-semitism” being a factor at all. Anybody who actually knew em said the same, with one acquaintance stating clearly that “everything I know about Elias leads me to believe he acted in protest of the Israeli State and Zionist ideology, not Judaism” and another remarking that ey “never, ever said anything remotely racist about Jews or anyone, not even in a joking way.”(3)

Unlike the bourgeois press, we have little interest in publishing salacious details about what people say in private conversations or spreading idle gossip about the lifestyles of individuals. On that note, we will simply say we agree with Rodriguez’s sentiment that “PSL [Party for Socialism and Liberation] sucks shit” (we will add, FRSO is not any better) and hope to see em continue studying Marxism-Leninism-Maoism from the perspective of the Third World proletariat while being held in enemy captivity.

Put the settler regime on trial!

From both the right and the “left”, Rodriguez’s actions are being condemned in the bourgeois press and on social media in the harshest terms; being smeared as insane, motivated by racial hatred or just senselessly violent. As we can see from eir manifesto, that could not be further from the truth. The pig regime and its news outlets, along with their cronies and lap dogs among the revisionist “left”, need to peddle this image because it hides the truth: Israel and Amerika are guilty of perpetuating more violence, racial hatred, and cold-blooded murder than any regime since Nazi Germany. The average Amerikan is complacent with causing far more death and destruction globally than merely two fatalities. In November 2023, one month into the current genocide, the WHO reported that a child in Gaza was being killed every 10 minutes. Current estimates from UNICEF place the number of children who have been killed or injured by Israel’s genocide in Gaza at over 50,000 since October 2023, approximately 82 children per day.(4)

This country purports its legal and penal system to be instruments of democratic justice, punishing everyone equally for crimes of equal measure. If that were the case, every i$raeli official, I$raeli Offense Forces (IOF) war criminal, and Amerikan politician with Palestinian blood on their hands would be on trial along with the large majority of amerikan journalists, military contractors, business leaders and other warmongers who whitewashed and profited from Israel’s genocidal crimes against humynity. These are the kinds of people who should be worrying about facing imprisonment or death row, not somebody like Rodriguez! As long as the united $tates continues to aid and abet the genocide in Palestine, in material aid or in rhetoric, there is not a judge or jury in the country who is fit to judge eir action. When this country as a whole is sentenced to some form of justice, when settler imperialism is ended; only then could the bourgeoisie and their running dogs talk about “senseless violence” without indicting themselves.

Much like we understand cops killed during struggles against New Afrikans to be enemies of the people, casualties of the low-level war enacted upon oppressed nations, we can see Rodriguez’s act through the same lens.(5) Rodriguez did not force any Palestinian families from their homes, nor did ey sit around a table and sign off on more checks for more bombs for i$rael. As is the case when any agent of imperialism, whether it’s a cop, an IOF soldier, or a staffer of the embassy to a genocidal nation, is killed in their line of work, “this is a classic case of the chickens coming home to roost”.(6)

In the days since Rodriguez’s act, according to the United Nations, 100 percent of Gazans are now “on the brink of famine”, (7) and the last functioning hospital in north Gaza has been forced to close by Israel (8) under threats of total extermination of its doctors and patients. Compare that to two settler lives lost and say more about “senseless violence”. The obsessive focus by the media on Elias Rodriguez and two deceased embassy staffers is simultaneously an attempt to shift the growing sympathies of the semi-conscientious sections of the Amerikan people away from Palestine, as well as an attempt to justify further criminalization of dissent, such as the still-in-development Project Esther, Trump’s plan to crack down on the broader solidarity movement. It is a continuation of a double standard dating back as far as this country’s existence: to kill a settler is to deprive an innocent humyn being of a life in a deplorable act; to kill an oppressed persyn is just the way the world works.

Dare to struggle! Dare to win!

While we do not think acts of individualized violence are an effective tactic in defeating imperialism, we refuse to join in the enemy’s chorus of denouncement and slander against Elias Rodriguez. Our duty as communists at this time is to guide the masses with scientific leadership and a correct political line that conforms with revolutionary practice. Rodriguez’s action highlights the importance of carrying out our central task of building independent institutions that can absorb this kind of spontaneous individual anger and refine it into disciplined collective action that truly serves the oppressed. In the present moment, it is imperative to understand that line is decisive and there is no place for vacillation in the revolutionary movement. As Mao remarked:

“When the Party’s line is correct, then everything will come its way. If it has no followers, then it can have followers; if it has no guns, then it can have guns; if it has no political power, then it can have political power. If its line is not correct, even what it has it may lose. The line is a net rope. When it is pulled, the whole net opens out.” (9)

We are disappointed (although not surprised) to see how many other so-called “communist” groups are pathetically bowing down to the oppressor by parroting their pearl-clutching about this disruption to the false peace and making lazy statements about “adventurism” while the genocide of Palestinians continues with no end in sight. Without a cohesive and principled revolutionary movement, we can expect to see similar incidents in the future. Our view of this incident is that it is essentially a consequence of the anti-imperialist movement being underdeveloped relative to the consciousness of the more advanced masses who are understandably frustrated by the lack of any meaningful outlet for their revolutionary energy.

Until Palestine is liberated and those responsible for the genocide are held to account for their crimes, any talk about “justice” in this case is just hot air.

Free Elias Rodriguez!

^Sources:
1. Al-Jazeera, 3 June 2025, _Israel kills 24 Palestinians at aid site in southern Gaza’s Rafah
2. Klippenstein, 22 May 2025, The Israel Embassy Shooter’s Manifesto
3. Klippenstein, 27 May 2025, _Read Elias Rodriguez’s Leaked Chats
4. Reuters, 10 November 2023, A child killed on average every 10 minutes in Gaza, says WHO chief
5. Triumphant, January 2024, _On New Afrikan Victimization, Under Lock & Key 85.
6. cipactli of Brown Berets - Prison Chapter, March 2013, Chris Dorner Demonstrates Contradictions Between Amerika and Oppressed Nations, Under Lock & Key 31.
7. Al-Jazeera, 30 May 2025, UN: ‘100 percent’ of Gazans on brink of famine
8. Al-Jazeera, 29 May 2025, Israel orders closure of al-Awda Hospital, a ‘lifeline’ in north Gaza
9. Mao, 1971, Talks With Responsible Comrades At Various Places During Provincial Tour^