The individual who allegedly killed two Israeli Embassy employees outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. last Wednesday night was affiliated with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, which celebrated the terror incident on October 7, 2023, in the hours following it.
Elias Rodriguez, 31, was charged with two charges of first-degree murder, murder of foreign officials, and many firearm-related offenses. The Department of Justice is considering whether to seek the death sentence in the case. Rodriguez allegedly carried out the shooting after flying from his home in Chicago, Illinois.
The incident occurred on the night of May 21, during an event hosted by the American Jewish Committee that brought together Jewish professionals and diplomats.
Yaron Lischinsky, 31, and Sarah Milgrim, 26, were killed in the shooting. Milgrim and Lischinsky were engaged. Both people were hired by the Israeli Embassy.
Following the incident, the Party for Socialism and Liberation announced in a post on X that Rodriguez had a “brief” relationship with the organization that ended in 2017.
“We deny any attempts to link the PSL to the DC shooting. Elias Rodriguez is not a member of the PSL. He had a brief relationship with one branch of the PSL, which ended in 2017. “We have had no contact with him in more than 7 years,” the organization stated. “We have nothing to do with this shooting and do not support it.”
The association contends that “the only solution to the deepening crisis of capitalism is the socialist transformation of society.”
“Capitalism, driven by an insatiable need for ever bigger profits regardless of social cost, is on a collision course with the world’s people and the earth itself. Imperialist war, rising unemployment and poverty, failing health care, housing, and education, racism, gender and sexual orientation discrimination and brutality, and environmental damage are all unavoidable byproducts of the capitalist system,” according to its website.
When discussing Amazon’s presence in Seattle, Washington, Elias Rodriguez was identified as a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation in an article that has since been withdrawn from the organization’s official newspaper.
“The wealth that Amazon has brought to Seattle has not been shared with its Black residents,” Rodriguez told the audience. “[Amazon’s] whitening of Seattle is structurally discriminatory and poses a direct threat to all workers in that city. So, do we in Chicago and across the country want a nation of cities dominated and occupied by large companies, where only the rich and white can reside while the great majority of us must live on the outskirts of the city and society in ever-increasing poverty?
In the hours following the Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attack in Israel, the group posted on X, claiming that resistance “is not a crime!”
“Resistance to apartheid and fascist-style oppression is not illegal! It is the unavoidable conclusion for all people who seek self-determination rather than live with the oppressors’ boot on their necks,” the group stated.
According to the group, the attack on October 7, 2023 “is a morally and legally legitimate response to occupation.”
In a subsequent X post on October 8, 2023, the group stated, “Palestinian resistance is not terrorism! It is a fundamental fact of history that any population subjected to occupation would fight it.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, speakers at the Party for Socialism and Liberation rallies after October 7, 2023 lauded Hamas and the attacks.
“We saw last weekend, the only recourse the Palestinians have left, which is armed resistance, and again, that is their right under international law,” one speaker said at an Oct. 14, 2023 demonstration in Tampa, Florida.
