[Want even more content from FPM? Sign up for FPM+ to unlock exclusive series, virtual town-halls with our authors, and more—now for just $3.99/month. Click here to sign up.]

The antisemitic hate that has engulfed college campuses and spilled into city streets across the United States and abroad has erupted into cold blooded murder. Elias Rodriguez, a 30-year-old pro-Hamas supporter from Chicago, allegedly shot to death two Israeli Embassy employees who were leaving a reception on May 21st at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. The victims were Yaron Lischinsky, a German-Israeli diplomat, and Sarah Milgrim, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen working in cultural diplomacy and public engagement for the embassy. They were both dedicated to peace-building and were expecting to get formally engaged in Jerusalem in just a few days.

After the fatal shootings, Rodriguez entered the museum, pulled out a kaffiyeh, and said, “I did it. I did this for Gaza.” And then he started shouting “Free, Free Palestine!” He is being held in federal custody awaiting formal charges of first-degree murder and possibly of a federal hate crime.

The Israeli Embassy to the U.S. said in a statement: “Yaron and Sarah were our friends and colleagues. They were in the prime of their lives.” The statement added that “a terrorist shot and killed them as they exited an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in DC.”

President Trump posted on his Truth Social website: “These horrible D.C. killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, NOW!”

Elias Rodriguez is no stranger to leftwing extremism. The New York Post reported, for example, that Mr. Rodriguez was “once linked to the Party for Socialism and Liberation — a far-left group that regularly posts anti-Israel rhetoric on social media.” This radical group quickly distanced itself from the D.C. slaughters, however. Mr. Rodriguez has also been involved with the Black Lives Matter movement and participated several years ago in demonstrations organized by such leftwing organizations as the People’s Congress of Resistance and ANSWER Chicago.

Now it appears that Mr. Rodriguez has moved from rowdy demonstrations to committing a lethal act of domestic terrorism. The violent antisemitic demonstrations in support of Hamas since Hamas’s massacre and abduction of thousands of Jews from Israel on October 7, 2023 have set the stage for Rodriguez’s alleged dual murders in front of the Capital Jewish Museum.

A manifesto under the name of Elias Rodriguez was posted on social media just hours before the shootings under the heading “Escalate For Gaza, Bring The War Home.” It purported to justify “armed action” to accompany “nonviolent protest.”

If convicted of first-degree murder as a hate crime, Elias Rodriguez will deserve the death penalty, or at minimum life imprisonment with no chance of parole.