DC Murders: Two More Sacrifices in the Left’s Worship of Violence

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When Elias Rodriguez was arrested for the cold-blooded murders of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, he screamed “Free Palestine.” Elias Rodriguez is not a “Palestinian.” He is not an Arab. Unless the fact has gone entirely unreported, he is not a Muslim. Elias Rodriguez’s murderous determination to “free Palestine” emanates entirely from his fanatical leftism, which also led him to involvement in the communist Party for Socialism and Liberation. For Elias Rodriguez, joining the bloody jihad against Israel was all part of his commitment to “social justice.”

For the left, hatred of Israel and love for the “Palestinians” is wrapped up with its overall commitment to aid “the oppressed” against “the oppressor.” This is the all-purpose lens through which to understand the world that Marx and Lenin and the rest bequeathed to us, and however false and misleading it may be when applied to any given situation, leftists nevertheless insist that it is the fundamental way in which every conflict between people must be understood.

Elias Rodriguez, whose father was invited to attend a Trump address by a far-left, Israel-hating congressman, likely grew up hearing not only that Israel was oppressing the “Palestinians,” which is false, but that they were doing so because they were racists, as they were white and the “Palestinians” brown, which is likewise false. He also likely learned that the oppressed, especially the brown oppressed, have every right to lash out in violence against the white oppressor, and that such violence was not subject to the ordinary canons of morality or decency: when the oppressed was engaged in “resistance” to his oppression, anything and everything was justified.

This is also the view of Nihad Awad, the cofounder and longtime executive director of the the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). When Hamas brutally massacred 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023, Awad said: “The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege, the walls of the concentration camp, on October 7. And yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land, and walk free into their land, which they were not allowed to walk in. And yes, the people of Gaza have the right to self-defense, have the right to defend themselves, and yes, Israel, as an occupying power, does not have that right to self-defense.”

Gaza was no concentration camp. What concentration camp ever fired rockets into the surrounding areas, was the recipient of billions in aid from the UN, EU, and US, repeatedly broadcast its determination to defeat and commit genocide against a neighboring people, and built a massive network of tunnels to aid in attaining that goal? But note what Awad doesn’t say: he doesn’t have a word of sympathy for the Israeli victims. He doesn’t deplore the mass murder of civilians, including babies. In fact, he says he was “happy” to see the people of Gaza “walk free,” as if all they did was take a stroll, when he knew very well that what they did was indulge the most horrifying bloodlust against those whom they had been indoctrinated to hate above all things.

Nihad Awad is a believing Muslim, and Elias Rodriguez apparently was not, but they both share the core belief that serves as the glue of the leftist/Islamic alliance: the acceptance of violence as a justified response to alleged oppression, and as a means to terrorize and destroy those whom one regards as enemies. The left has shown again and again that it is altogether willing, and even eager, to use violence and terror as a means to gain and hold power. We saw this in the French Revolution, and in the Soviet Union, and in Communist China, and in Democratic Kampuchea, and everywhere else that the left has ever held power.

If Elias Rodriguez and his ilk get their way, we will see it on a large scale in the United States, a scale that will make clear what the brutal murders of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim really were: a foretaste and prelude to what leftists have in store for all of us, all of us who love God, and life, and Israel, and America, if they get the chance. And they’re working very hard, even now, to get that chance.