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On Wednesday night, 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez murdered a young couple as they departed an event organized by the American Jewish Committee at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. The victims were Israeli Embassy staff members, although it is unknown whether the gunman was aware of this. Video of Rodriguez’s subsequent arrest showed him yelling, “Free, free Palestine,” a common chant of anti-Israel activists and an implied call for the destruction of the Jewish state.
Once again, Jews were targeted in an unconscionable terrorist act motivated by violent rhetoric, realizing the worst fears of Jewish communities worldwide. As CAM CEO Sacha Roytman said, “This murder didn’t happen in a vacuum, but is the direct result of the incessant hatred by those who call to ‘Globalize the Intifada.’”
Initial reports indicated prior links between Rodriguez and a branch of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), a far-left group.
The Antisemitism Research Center (ARC) by CAM had previously called attention to the PSL, noting its association with a network of activists that protested the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August 2024.
A day after the attack in Washington, D.C., PSL wrote on X:
We reject any attempt to associate the PSL with the DC shooting. Elias Rodriguez is not a member of the PSL. He had a brief association with one branch of the PSL that ended in 2017. We know of no contact with him in over 7 years. We have nothing to do with this shooting and do not support it.
One report, however, noted that in “a picture from April 2025, a person resembling Rodriguez appears to participate in PSL-Chicago’s ‘Socialist Reconstruction Study Group’ at the Restoried Bookshop in Chicago.”
Even if the individual in question is not Rodriguez, PSL’s words ring hollow. Its official statements and propaganda leave no doubt that it is an expressly pro-Hamas organization that supports the group’s mass murder of Jews in Israel.
Immediately after the October 7th massacre, the deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust, PSL wrote in a statement published on its website:
The corporate media and politicians want the public to believe that Israel is simply defending itself from “terrorism.” That’s a lie. The actions of the resistance over the course of the last day is a morally and legally legitimate response to occupation.
The statement’s authors also called the massacre a “bold counter-offensive.”
PSL’s Chicago branch, the chapter with which Rodriguez appears to have been affiliated, is also pro-terror. An April 30, 2025 Instagram post on the chapter’s Instagram page promoting an “art build” depicted a woman holding a poster board with an image of a firearm and the word “revolution.” The poster board is also adorned with images of armed Hamas terrorists and a “victory” hand symbol, alongside the words, “Ceasefire today, liberation tomorrow.”
In a January 15, 2024 post, PSL Chicago promoted an event to “learn from the resistance in the Middle East,” evoking a euphemism typically used in far-left parlance to whitewash terrorism. The post’s caption touts “the resolve of the resistance in Yemen, Palestine, and Lebanon,” meaning the Houthis, Hamas, and Hezbollah, respectively — all U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs). The accompanying image shows men toting firearms and women waving Hezbollah flags.
In its own October 7, 2023 statement, PSL Chicago wrote on Instagram, “RESISTANCE IS JUSTIFIED, WHEN PEOPLE ARE OCCUPIED! FREE PALESTINE!,” indicating support for Hamas’ actions. The post also said, “We join the world in standing with the people of Palestine in their just and courageous struggle against occupation” and promoted writings by Ghassan Kanafani, a deceased member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a U.S.-designated FTO.
Purported Manifesto, Online Activity of D.C. Shooter Reveal Anti-Israel Extremism
Rodriguez’s alleged manifesto, obtained by journalist Ken Klippenstein, reflects a radical anti-Israel and antisemitic worldview. The document denounces “genocide” in Gaza — a lie meant to obscure Israel’s aim of defeating Hamas and freeing the hostages the terror group abducted in the October 7th attack. Additionally, the manifesto expresses support for Aaron Bushnell, who self-immolated in an act of protest in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. in February 2024. (Soon after Bushnell’s suicide, PSL promoted an event at which “hundreds honored Aaron Bushnell’s immense sacrifice.”)
If authentic, the manifesto underscores the dangers arising from widespread dissemination of misinformation and antisemitic propaganda designed to fuel radicalization.
An X account seemingly belonging to Rodriguez had previously shared content threatening “death to Israel,” and the profile picture on what is believed to be his Bluesky account features the Palestinian terrorists who carried out a deadly shooting attack in Jaffa last November.
Antisemitic Murder Underscores a Wider Problem of Far-Left Antisemitism
In the wake of a horrific antisemitic murder on U.S. soil that will attract significant attention from law enforcement, it perhaps makes sense that PSL would attempt to distance itself from the actions of its former follower.
Nonetheless, the evidence is clear: PSL, including its Chicago branch, is supportive of terrorist organizations that murder innocent people in Israel. No one should feign surprise that acolytes of such groups then target Jews for death worldwide.
Observers should regard PSL as part of a far-left ecosystem that regularly disseminates antisemitic hatred motivated by anti-Zionism, a phenomenon that has only intensified since the October 7th massacre. The outlook painting Israel as a “colonial” and “illegitimate country,” and dehumanizing Israelis as “colonizers” or “settlers,” is what drives antisemitism in far-left circles.
For example, many chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a network of anti-Zionist hate groups on college campuses whose members frequently promulgate far-left ideas and language, openly support terrorist groups and the October 7th attack, as ARC’s research has revealed.
The majority of the incidents of antisemitism that the ARC recorded in 2024 — 68.4%, or 4,329 of 6,326 — were linked to far-left ideology.
Although far-right incidents that the ARC recorded last year were slightly more likely to involve violence and much more likely to involve vandalism than left-wing incidents were, Wednesday night’s murders in Washington, D.C., underscore that antisemitic violence is not the exclusive domain of one side of the political spectrum. Incitement and bigotry, including violent far-left propaganda, have dangerous and tragic consequences.
Protecting Jewish Lives Demands Action
Urgent action is needed from a myriad of stakeholders to stem this tide of hatred before it claims even more lives.
Media outlets must improve their coverage of anti-Israel agitation and protest activities. As the ARC has pointed out regularly, reporters too often fail to convey the pro-terror radicalism of actors behind anti-Israel protests, instead describing them as merely “pro-Palestinian” or “anti-war.” Thorough coverage of such context would increase the broader societal awareness of the need to actively counter emerging threats from far-left and anti-Zionist circles.
Furthermore, law enforcement officers must vigilantly enhance security at and near events hosted by Jewish organizations, especially in large cities that have seen heightened anti-Israel activities in at the aftermath of October 7th. Just last year, Washington, D.C. itself was the site of antisemitic protests that included open support for Hamas.
Social media companies must quickly remove pro-terrorist content and ban the accounts that post it. For example, Meta, Instagram’s parent company, already rightly bans white nationalists and supremacists from its platforms on the grounds their ideology is “inherently tied to violence and attempts to organize people around calls for violence or exclusion of others based on their protected characteristics.” Groups such as PSL that do the same vis-a-vis Israelis should be treated no differently, and thwarting their ability to spread hate would help mitigate the risk of radicalization and resultant violence.
