Swaths of Anti-Zionist Movement Legitimize Killings at D.C. Jewish Museum

Many anti-Zionist activists, influencers, and social media users across platforms have responded to the double murder Wednesday night of a young couple at a reception for Jewish young professionals and diplomats at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., with a mix of outright celebration, glee, and justification for the killings. Some even called for additional violence and praised the murder suspect as a hero of the anti-Zionist movement. 

Some prominent groups in the movement did condemn the murders, however, their responses were then met with criticism or mockery from other anti-Zionists. Reactions from various other extremists and conspiracy theorists have also included antisemitic accusations and immediate claims of a “false flag” operation. 

The suspect, 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez of Chicago, Illinois, was taken into custody the night of May 21, 2025, shouting, “Free, free Palestine,” after fatally shooting Israeli embassy staffers Yaron Lischinsky (an Israeli citizen) and Sarah Milgrim (a U.S. citizen), as they were exiting an event hosted by the American Jewish Committee (AJC). Rodriguez told police who arrived at the scene, “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza.”

Praise for Rodriguez and Calls for Further Action

Rodriguez’s words and actions have been cheered by various anti-Zionist groups and influencers, as has a manifesto posted to his X account that the ADL Center on Extremism (COE) has, with a high degree of certainty, linked to him.

The manifesto, titled “Escalate For Gaza, Bring The War Home” — slogans commonly used by anti-Israel activists, particularly in more extreme, militant spaces — was turned into a printable, distributable zine by multiple anti-Zionist groups. One such example was created and shared by Unity of Fields, a far-left anti-Zionist “direct action network” that supports the targeting of “Zionist” individuals and institutions, which reproduced Rodriguez’s words in a zine that also included prominent imagery of a gun.

In a series of posts, Unity of Fields commented, “We ain’t condemning shit,” “FREE ELIAS RODRIGUEZ!” and referred to the suspect as a “political prisoner.” The group doubled down in yet another post on X Friday, claiming that Rodriguez was acting out of “solidarity and love for the Palestinian people.”

The cover of a Unity of Fields zine based on the alleged manifesto of the suspect in the fatal shooting of two Israeli Embassy staffers attending an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in D.C. (Screenshot)

The group also made printable stickers depicting the murder suspect and urged people to "post them everywhere," in a signal of endorsement for his actions. One sticker bears the slogan, "Courage is contagious," a call for further violence. 

The Bronx Anti-War Coalition, a radical New York-based anti-Israel group, wrote on X: “What Elias Rodriguez did is the highest expression of anti-Zionism.” In a similar post to its Telegram channel, the group added: “We need more Elias Rodriguez in the world.”

On X, anti-Zionist influencer Zei Squirrel, an account with some 280,000 followers, wrote: “The elimination of Israeli regime assets is the most moral act in human history per the standards of the genocidal Zionist Western media and political class.”

Anti-Zionist influencer Guy Christensen declared from his @YourFavoriteGuy account to his 3.4 million TikTok followers, “I do not condemn the elimination of those two Zionist officials.” He told his followers, “I want to urge you first to support Elias's actions. He is not a terrorist. He's a resistance fighter.” Christensen encouraged his followers to meet a potential “crackdown on the movement...with escalation and stronger resistance.”

A screenshot from a TikTok by Guy Christensen titled 'Elias Rodriguez's Act of Resistance Was Justified,' May 22, 2025. (Screenshot/TikTok) 

During a May 25 interview on Activist News Network, Canadian anti-Zionist activist and Free Palestine TV founder Laith Marouf defended the shooting. He stated, "The staff at the Zionist embassy, in my opinion, are legitimate targets in war...All officials that represent the Israeli government are legitimate targets."

A recently launched Marxist-Leninist-Maoist group identifying itself as the DSA Liberation Caucus posted in support of Rodriguez, including signing onto a statement published by Unity of Fields supporting the suspect and sharing a graphic of him with the caption, “It is right to rebel against the enemy. This is a Maoist law.” The DSA Liberation Caucus’s posts about Rodriguez were not shared by the umbrella Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) organization. DSA's national account subsequently put out a short statement firmly condemning the shooting, asserting that they "reject vigilante violence" and that "any statement otherwise is not the stance of DSA."

MontCo for Palestine, a Pennsylvania-based anti-Israel group that has a history of engaging in extreme anti-Zionist activity and rhetoric that supports terrorist organizations and propaganda, also posted in strong support of Rodriguez. Its May 24 statement read, in part: “The question is not whether violence against the architects of this horror is justified. The question, searing and inescapable, is why there hasn't been more of it...The crackle of gunfire in Washington DC was the echo of Gaza's resistance reaching across oceans, the inevitable result of an empire that believed it could burn the world and remain untouched.” The statement concluded by echoing the popular “Bring the war home” phrase that Rodriguez used in his manifesto.

Susan Abulhawa, an anti-Israel author and activist, posted on X: “Natural logic: when governments fail to hold Israel accountable for an actual holocaust being committed before our very eyes, no genocidal Zionist should be safe anywhere in the world.” She added in another post, “Now we’re supposed to feel bad for two genocide cheerleaders after watching these colonizer baby killers slaughter people by the hundreds every day for two years. I’ve seen the inside of too many children’s skulls to give a crap about the human garbage who get off on mass murder.”

The California-based, far-left anti-Zionist group the United Liberation Front for Palestine shared the news about the shooting on its Instagram page with close to 30,000 followers with the comment, “MAY ALL ZIONISTS BURN.” It also reshared Unity of Fields’ comment on not condemning the killings.

Resistance News Network (RNN) and Palestine News Network (PNN), extreme anti-Zionist groups that also post content praising anti-Israel terror and violence, also expressed support for the shooting. In the popular RNN Telegram channel, hundreds of people reacted with celebratory emojis to the post announcing the attack.

PNN leader David Wolff posted a screenshot on Instagram of a news story about the shooting that featured a photograph of Lischinsky and added the caption, “Death to Nazis.”

Additional Justification for the Shooting

Even others who did not outright celebrate the murders nonetheless found ways to justify or excuse them, including frequently utilizing Nazi-related commentary.

Eyup Lovely, an X account with some 65,000 followers, posted mockingly: “My heart breaks for the two innocent staffers of the German Reich embassy who were robbed of their lives by senseless anti Germanic violence last night. I have telegraphed my sympathies to the Führer for the Volksgenossen community.”

Aidan Simardone, a Canadian lawyer and writer, garnered more than five thousand likes on a post on X mocking “Every ‘progressive’ politician: I oppose the Holocaust, but oppose the killing of Nazi Germany embassy staff.”

Palestinian activist Mohammed El-Kurd, who writes for The Nation and Mondoweiss, shared a post that compared the murders of the two Israeli Embassy staffers to the 1938 killing of a Nazi diplomat at the hands of a Jewish refugee in Paris. El-Kurd also denied that the shooting was “a random antisemitic attack” and alleged “it was undeniably, and by the alleged shooter’s own admission, a response to the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza.”

The line of argument that the attack was not antisemitic — even as the suspect targeted a Jewish event at a Jewish institution with a significant number of Jewish attendees — also resonated with Candace Owens, the right-wing public figure and political commentator who has come to embrace and promote antisemitic tropes and extreme anti-Israel rhetoric.

In her show on Thursday, posted to over 4.5 million subscribers, Owens referred to the characterization of the shooting as an antisemitic attack as “desperate,” and said the “Zionists have lost the moral argument...Too many Americans are awakened to this, especially the youth are awakened to these sorts of tactics. And they just did too much too fast, trying to cancel too many people, trying to call everybody literally Hitler.”

Khaled Barakat, who is sanctioned by the U.S. government for his ties to the terror group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and is a leader of the transnational anti-Israel groups Samidoun and Masar Badil, stated that “targeting employees of the ‘Israeli’ embassy, is a natural consequence of the Zionist entity’s crimes in the Gaza Strip.”

Charlotte Kates, Barakat’s partner and Samidoun's international coordinator, similarly commented: “It should surprise...no one at all that people will act when there is no accountability whatsoever imposed upon that genocidal regime...Genocide has to have consequences.”

Haz Al-Din, one of the founding members of the American Communist Party (ACP), whose openly pro-terror activities include attending former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s funeral in Lebanon earlier this year, commented, “I DO NOT support or encourage violence. However, Zionists have NO moral leg to stand on.”

The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN), a group that facilitates global anti-Israel activity on the part of anti-Zionist Jews, posted on Instagram to its close to 70,000 followers that the shooting was just "consequences" for Israel's actions and "a response to the genocide in Gaza." It further said that the "attack is precedented and the precedent was set by Israel."

Criticism Toward Those Condemning the Murders

Various anti-Zionist activists also reacted by mocking those within the anti-Israel movement who condemned the shooting. The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), for example, put out a statement attempting to distance itself from Rodriguez — who was affiliated with the group for a time in 2017 and 2018 — and saying that they “do not support” the shooting. Joe Catron, a longtime anti-Israel activist who has been involved with Samidoun and the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), responded to PSL’s post by asking, “So were all those ‘resistance is justified!’ chants you led outright lies?” in reference to the slogan frequently used by PSL at their anti-Israel protests.

Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) was also among the anti-Israel groups to condemn the shooting, posting from its national account: “All human life is precious, which is precisely why we are struggling for a world in which all people can live in safety and dignity.” The United Liberation Front for Palestine commented in response: “And anyone who condemns [the shooting] will be telling on themselves.”

A contingent of hardline anti-Zionist Jewish groups and influencers leveled similar criticisms against those anti-Zionist Jewish groups who condemned the shooting. The statement and accompanying Instagram caption — shared by the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN), multiple chapters of Jews Against White Supremacy (JAWS), Anti-Zionist Minyan (AZM), Houston Jews for Palestine, and others — read, in part: “Outrageously, some progressive and antizionist organizations have painted the assassination of two Israeli state employees as a hate crime aimed at their Jewish identity…These knee-jerk condemnations of violence by anyone other than Zionists and the Zionist entity are nothing more than an appeal to the optics of normalization and are politically damaging for the movement.”

Anna Rajagopal, a Texas-based anti-Zionist activist leader, also shared the statement and made a number of additional posts criticizing the condemnations of violence published by JVP, IfNotNow, and others. In one such post, she commented, “As the genocide rages on, the hypocrisy and liberal zionism of these orgs cannot be ignored. principled anti-zionist jewish organizers have the power and capacity to reject the chokehold these orgs have on the jewish anti-zionist movement [all sic].”

Rajagopal’s rhetoric echoed longstanding accusations that the more radical factions of the anti-Israel movement regularly make against others within it.

Lamis Deek, a New York-based anti-Zionist leader with the group Al-Awda, responded by equating JVP’s statement to excusing Nazis: “‘American born Himler converted to Nazism to defend Nazis from accusations of forced famine and secure money and weapons for Nazi Germany, shot by activist who yelled ‘Free the Jews.’ JVP and US establishment condemn anti-German violence, send condolences to global Nazi family.’”

Zainab Chaudry, director of the Maryland chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), put out a statement standing against “all forms of violence, including political violence,” adding that while the organization shares “the immense pain and anguish over Israel's ongoing U.S backed genocide and famine in Gaza. It is not the answer. We stand against tactics that undermine the just and righteous cause for a free Palestine.”

CAIR Chicago director Ahmed Rehab also condemned the shooting, but couched it by stating, “We stand squarely against vigilante violence — even against those who may be complicit in genocide.”

A Surge in Online Threats Following the Attack 

In addition to the reactions from known anti-Zionist groups and activists, similar extreme responses proliferated in anonymous online spaces after the shooting, including on the popular private messaging service and social media platform Telegram. These responses followed a predictable pattern, as COE research has previously shown that acts of violence against Jews and Israelis, such as Hamas's October 7 attack, can lead to noticeable upticks in violent antisemitic discourse and threats on Telegram. 

COE analysts regularly monitor thousands of extremist and hateful Telegram channels, collecting posts and identifying threats within those channels. Comparing the volume of threats targeting Jews, Zionists or Israelis in the week before and the week following the May 21, 2025, shooting in D.C., COE researchers found that there was a 344% surge in threats the week after the attack. Daily threats averaged 29 messages between May 14 and May 21, compared to 129 messages daily between May 22 and May 28, representing the surge. This jump encompassed nearly 1,000 individual posts containing threatening antisemitic language from May 22-28. 

ADL researchers reviewed the threatening posts from this period and found that they were dominated by anti-Israel and anti-Zionist ideologies, with other forms of antisemitism, including white supremacy, registering a much smaller volume of threats in comparison. Threatening messages included comments like "Death to all Zionist terrorist pigs" and "I support the killing of the entire israeli [sic] population."