Two young Israeli embassy staffers were gunned down outside of the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night by a suspected pro-Palestinian terrorist.
Police have identified 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, Ill. as the lone suspect in the case. Rodriguez chanted “Free, free Palestine” as he was being detained.
Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim attended an American Jewish Committee Young Diplomats reception at the museum Wednesday evening to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Israel and Gaza.
Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela Smith said that event attendees saw Rodriguez pacing outside of the museum before he took a handgun and opened fire on a group of four people. The suspect discarded the gun and went inside, where he was detained by security.
Onlookers captured a video of Rodriguez yelling “free Palestine” as he was taken into custody.
The two victims were dating and had planned to get engaged soon, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S. Yecheil Leiter said.
“The couple that was gunned down tonight in the name of Free Palestine was a young couple about to be engaged,” Leiter said. “The young man purchased a ring this week with the intention of proposing to his girlfriend next week in Jerusalem. They were a beautiful couple who came to enjoy an evening in Washington’s cultural center.”
Lischinsky was a staffer in the political department of the Israeli embassy who moved to Israel from Germany when he was a teenager. Born in Nuremberg, Lischinsky was a Christian, served in the Israel Defense Forces, and “embodied the Judeo-Christian values and set an example for young people worldwide,” Ambassador of Israel to Germany Ron Prosor said.
“This didn’t happen in a warzone,” Prosor said. “It happened in the capital of the free world, in the heart of Washington, D.C. Chanting ‘Free Palestine’ is not just a slogan, it’s a call to action to target Jews wherever they are.”
Milgrim worked in the Israeli embassy’s public diplomacy office. She had a master’s degree from D.C.’s American University, and a master’s from the United Nations University of Peace. On her LinkedIn profile, Milgrim said that her passion was “at the intersection of peace building, religious engagement, and environmental work.”
“While working with Tech2Peace in Tel Aviv, Israel, I conducted comprehensive research on peace building theory, emphasizing grassroots initiatives in the Israeli-Palestinian region,” Milgrim’s LinkedIn page read. “My diverse experiences, including facilitating insightful discussions on geopolitics in Israel and Palestine as a Jewish Educator, and researching an array of environmental topics in India and Central America, reflecting my commitment to fostering understanding between different peoples.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi, who was on-scene at the Capital Jewish Museum after the attack, said that U.S. Attorney for the District of Washington Jeanine Pirro would prosecute the suspect to the fullest extent of the law. President Donald Trump condemned the “horrible DC killings, based obviously on antisemitism.”
“Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA,” Trump said on social media. “Condolences to the families of the victims. So sad that such things as this can happen!”
The suspected murderer’s LinkedIn page shows that he works as a priorities administrative specialist at the American Osteopathic Association and used to serve as a researcher at the HistoryMakers, a nonprofit “committed to preserving and making widely accessible the untold personal stories of both well-known and unsung African Americans,” according to its statement of purpose.
Rodriguez’s biography on the HistoryMakers website, which has since been deleted, said that the suspect was “born and raised in Chicago, Illinois,” and holds “a B.A. degree in English from the University of Chicago.”
Rodriguez also had a “brief association” with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, according to the party, but “is not a member of the PSL.” Reports that Rodriguez belongs to the party arose after a speech he gave in October 2017 supposedly on behalf of the PSL circulated.
“The wealth that Amazon has brought to Seattle has not been shared with its black residents,” Rodriguez said in the speech, according to a post from the party’s news site Liberation, which was deleted shortly after Wednesday’s attack. “[Amazon’s] whitening of Seattle is structurally racist and a direct danger to all workers who live in that city.”
Reprinted with permission from National Review by Haley Strack.
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.
You don’t negotiate with evil.
You don’t compromise with evil.
you don’t tolerate evil.
you don’t co-exist with evil.
You destroy evil or evil will destroy you.
Capiche?
Without the Biblical understanding of the “Palestinians”, one just cannot see the ingrained hatred that is taught in their culture from birth onward. The only way this situation will change is if their culture changes. Pandering to them will not change them. Look at October 7, the number of Jewish families who treated people in Gaza with open arms. How were they repaid, by violence and war. You cannot make peace with a culture bent on violence and the ideal of exterminating who they do not like. It is a culture of violence and death.
No mercy for him, you live by the sward you die by the sward, Time to take a good hard look at all the halls of learning, they are the source of this poison. Thank God there is Jeanine Pirro.
Tragic. And to think there are thousands of these radical Islamic scumbags in our country that are praising this thug.
This is a travesty that should have been prevented but with those cities where the police forces have been devastated by the Demo insane unlawful policies, it is not a surprise. With the previous administration of open borders, one has to wonder if this is just a start of more violence against the Jews in our nation and to drive them back to Israel. It is the end times that is spoken in the Bible.
Time to use the death penalty as quickly as possible for this vicious, evil creature!
“Heartbreaking” doesn’t even begin to say it! The families of the two victims will need support like never before. God bless and help them! And the shooter needs to face a true justice system….not the one we see for the ‘privileged,’ but the real one!!
Death penalty time, all these crazies understand
This is another great reason to bring back the death penalty. Two innocent young people whose lives were cut short. Also for the senseless killing of law enforcement officers in the line of duty. Our country needs to wake up. Controlling guns is not the answer, prosecuting killers with the same punishment they gave their victims. This killing in our nations capital is another great example of what the death penalty is for, its not a mystery, its a fact!
We need a good counter slogan to the tiresome “Free Palestine!” How about this one? NUKE Palestine! I’ve never been an advocate of the squeakiest wheel gets the most oil. If the same wheel keeps giving you trouble, replace it!
Was shooting connected to So African visit since So Africa is Anti Israel?
Execute this vermin! That this could happen in our Nations Capitol is a disgrace! That this corrupted ideology could flourish in our so-called “Institutes Of Higher Learning” is a greater disgrace. Prayers for these poor souls and their families.
This guy should face nothing less then the death penalty he deserves that. We do not need this in our country and there needs to be more Democrats arrested for promoting violence in this country that includes top Democrats in Washington as well they are a fault for what happens in this country.
I wonder who paid this person to shoot.
Was security out for donuts when said suspicious suspect was pacing out in front of museum??Give the victims swift justice. America stretch the neck of the marathon bomber and then this guy is next .
I say be prepared and carry your personal weapon and have one in the chamber. It is only going to get worse in this country for the Jewish people before it gets better,
For who ever executed this crime pay Karma big time!
I hope he gets the chair. I also want to follow this up with Puck Falestine.
Any terrorist that murders people should be strung up ASAP. We need the death penalty. No more throw them in prison for life. So he chanted free Palestine, was he referring to the people of Palestine or HAMAS? I think we know the answer. If Israel doesn’t win this war, do we really think the Palestinians would help rebuild Israel? You can ask Iran that question.
Trump, in his 1st term, was exactly correct when he said (paraphrasing here) that “people come here from sh#thole countries to turn the USA into a sh#thole country, too”.
This is exactly what Palistine and their bulldog Hamas stand for. They are only peaceful with their own people and a threat to anyone that doesn’t follow their beliefs. The war in Gaza is a sad thing, but who started it? Palestine! They deserve what they have asked for and Israel will never have peace unless they finish this war because Hamas will simply regroup and attack again, and Palestine will always give them that platform.
FREE THEM RIGHT BACK TO THEIR HOMELAND . America is a melting pot for people who love America .
To chant anything after a murder is to vomit out your distortions . . . and to encourage the rest of us to support the complete annihilation of a people that would behave in this way. God is merciful. None of us deserve His mercy or His grace. I’m sorry for those who do not accept His love and forgiveness – they are miserable and have nothing to look forward to . . . when they get so perverted in their minds that they do deeds such as this, we must be merciful to them and those about them by letting them pay the price of their deeds – a just judgement and pay with their life to show others this is not acceptable behavior. Not for ‘revenge’, but to show all of us we do not accept such behavior as acceptable at any level.
There is a lot being said about Israel killing the ‘innocent’ in Gaza – but the Israeli’s are not wanting to kill anyone other than those who are intent on killing them – wiping Israel off the map (from the river to the sea) and they hate so much they cannot see how wicked and unacceptable THEIR behavior is. The women and children are usually protected by a people – any people – but these “innocent” are used as shields and merely for protection of the cowardly males who know they will lose a fair fight . . . so their women and children are killed, not because of the Israeli’s, but because of their own males who force them to become part of the battle. Wickedness. Evil. Godless and to be condemned.
Then you get these cowards who come to our nation and behave with this same cowardice. This man needs justice to be swift and known – we don’t accept this in our nation, at least we shouldn’t.
Let Israel and Palestine fight their own problems..US must stay out of it. People are dying because of the evil greed of the Leaders of those countries.