A socialist group that called Hamas terrorism “legitimate” is distancing itself from a former member who allegedly gunned down Israeli Embassy workers.
Authorities named Elias Rodriguez, formerly an activist affiliated with the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), as the suspect accused of killing a young couple leaving the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night. Local police said Rodriguez yelled “free, free Palestine” when he was arrested while a witness said he held a Palestinian keffiyeh, prompting scrutiny of PSL’s extreme rhetoric on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
“We reject any attempt to associate the PSL with the DC shooting,” the PSL said in a Thursday X post. The group said he “had a brief association with one branch of the PSL that ended in 2017” and is no longer a member. “We have nothing to do with this shooting and do not support it,” reads the post.
The PSL did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The PSL deleted a 2017 article from its website describing Rodriguez as part of the group. The article said Rodriguez gave a speech for the PSL in his hometown of Chicago, Illinois, at a protest against police and racism, an archived webpage of the since-deleted article shows.
The socialist group defended what it called “Palestinian resistance forces” on the day of the Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attacks in Israel, when Hamas invaded the country, killed more than 1,100 people, raped women and took hundreds of hostages. The PSL said it was “false” to label the attacks as “terrorism” in a statement just hours after the massacres began.
“The corporate media and politicians want the public to believe that Israel is simply defending itself from ‘terrorism.’ That’s a lie,” the PSL said at the time. “The actions of the resistance over the course of the last day is a morally and legally legitimate response to occupation,” the PSL said, praising the largest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.
The PSL was also present at anti-Israel protests in Washington, D.C. in 2024 that featured vandalism, praise for terrorists and clashes with police. The group offered pamphlets to passersby that referred to Oct. 7 as a “counteroffensive.”
Wednesday night’s shooting took the lives of Israeli Embassy staffers Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim as they left a Jewish Capital Museum event. Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter told the press that Lischinsky was planning to propose to Milgrim before their deaths.
Rodriguez allegedly waited for police after the shooting and confessed to the crime when they arrived, according to one eyewitness. Local and federal authorities reportedly brought Rodriguez in for questioning early Thursday morning, and the FBI has searched his Chicago home.
In addition to PSL and other organizations, Rodrigues previously worked for the left-leaning nonprofit HistoryMakers as a “coordinator” and “researcher,” according to his LinkedIn profile. HistoryMakers purports to educate the public about “well-known and unsung African Americans,” its website says.
HistoryMakers claims that antisemitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan is an advocate for “reversing negative stereotypes” and the “message of a unified community.” The group did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) did not respond to requests for comment about an anti-Israel “manifesto” circulating online that some have attributed to Rodriguez.
“The FBI is aware of certain writings allegedly authored by the suspect, and we hope to have updates as to the authenticity very soon,” FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said in a Thursday X post.
Bongino called the shooting an “act of terror” and said “the penalties will be harsh.”
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