The Washington Embassy Murders: Hamas’s October 7th Invasion of America

The terror assault and killing of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, two young Israeli Embassy staffers at the beginning of their career, outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., on May 21, 2025, marks an escalation in the global campaign of violence and terror against Jews. It also intensifies Hamas-linked terror against the United States. The murder suspect, Elias Rodriguez, a 31-year-old radical pro-Hamas activist from Chicago, shouted “Free Palestine” and “I did it for Gaza” as he was led away by D.C. police. This terror attack is the most recent example of an under-recognized war. Calls to “globalize the intifada” are not mere rhetoric; they are a call to violence, terror, and subversion against the United States and the West.¹

Rodriguez’s social media posts offer insight into his and his fellow travelers’ anti-American ideology, reflecting a historical pattern of political violence and radicalism. One post praised Luigi Mangione, a 27-year-old Ivy League graduate charged with the December 4, 2024, murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan, a deadly attack protesting America’s health care system.²

Another Rodriguez repost after the 2024 U.S. election stated, “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted For Hamas,” while another read, “violence does not have to happen, but if it does, then it should,” and another: “Death 2 Amerikkka,” hearkening back to the radical 1960s-founded Black Panther Party (BPP) spelling of “America,” equating the United States to the racist Southern organization the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).³ The radical war on America continues a decades-old conflict. The Panthers branded the United States a “decadent” and “oppressive” society in their 1966 Ten-Point Program, while a 1971 letter called for “BLOODSHED,” “ARMED STRUGGLE,” and “VIOLENCE” to destroy the “Amerikkkan machine and its economy.”

Their comrades, the Weather Underground, called in their 1969 founding document for a “white fighting force” to support the “Black Liberation Movement” and destroy “U.S. imperialism” to achieve a “classless communist world.” These radical groups trafficked in terror, attempting to destroy and remake America in their image, not dissimilar from Hamas’s call to “Free Palestine from the river to the sea.” The Weather Underground, an offshoot of the radical Students for a Democratic Society, bombed the U.S. Capitol in 1971, the Pentagon in 1972, and a New York City police station in 1970, acts classified as domestic terrorism by the FBI.⁴

Today’s convergence between Islamist and far-left radicals, known as the red-green alliance, often expresses nostalgia for terrorists and praises acts of murder and subversion. Nerdeen Kiswani, the radical activist leader of the extremist group Within Our Lifetime, has expressed adoration for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist skyjacker Leila Khaled.⁵ Similarly, on Mangione’s birthday in May 2025, his supporters raised more than $1 million for his defense, describing him as a “contemporary folk hero” with a cult-like following at court appearances.⁶

Together, these trends point to a disturbing rise in ideologically motivated violence and terror against Jews, Israel, and the United States. In political warfare, words are weapons, and the pro-Hamas, pro-Islamic terror extremism festering in American universities, once sanctuaries of liberal values, has become a postmodern dystopian nightmare. Woke justification of terrorism by “any means necessary” against Israel and “American colonialism” has become a mainstreamed narrative, funded and fueled by Qatari anti-American postcolonial curricula in social sciences and Middle East and North Africa (MENA) studies programs.⁷ These academic programs, alongside funding for groups like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, create cognitive dissonance in American students, leading to extremism and the subversion of Western society.

The fatal Washington terror attack reflects a broader campaign, amplified by far-left activist networks, to export the Palestinian “intifada” to Western capitals. The slogan “globalize the intifada,” chanted at protests and scrawled across desecrated Jewish institutions, is a dog whistle for violence against Jews, Israelis, and the democratic values of the West. The Students for Justice in Palestine network on hundreds of American campuses and the international BDS crusade, heavily supported by both Qatari and far-left “charities,” are vocal proponents of this rhetoric. In 2017, Hatem Bazian, a co-founder of SJP, called for an “intifada in this country” at a San Francisco rally, a chilling precursor to the violence now unfolding.⁸

As I documented in several books on SJP and BDS, these movements share activist and terrorist links.⁹ Young Westerners are now open to radical postcolonial theory that demonizes the societies in which they live and thrive. These theories paint Israel and the West as colonial oppressors, thereby legitimizing violence as “resistance.” This ideology has transformed hundreds of North American universities into breeding grounds for extremism and visceral support for terrorism against the West. The common burning of American flags at these protests reflects their collective mood and mindset.

Both Islamist and leftist ideologies fuel this violence, united by their shared hatred of Western civilization. Islamists view the West as a moral and cultural adversary, while far-left radicals see it as the root of global oppression. This intersection creates a volatile alliance that encourages extremist action, with each side exploiting the other’s rhetoric to justify violence. To illustrate, Iranian regime officials called Rodriguez “the Washington Basij,” invoking the Iranian paramilitary force of its 1979 Islamic Revolution. Kayhan, a newspaper closely aligned with Khamenei, published an editorial on May 24, 2025, stating, “Our dear brother Elias Rodriguez, who killed two Israelis in the U.S., has founded the Washington Basij.” The editor, Hossein Shariatmadari, further wrote, “Any news of our dear brother Elias Rodriguez, who sent two Zionist wild animals in Washington to hell with a bullet?”¹⁰

The historical context is critical. The Basij, a volunteer militia under Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was instrumental in enforcing ideological conformity and suppressing dissent. The Basij used children to clear minefields in the 1980s war against Iraq, just as Hamas uses Gazan children as human shields. Khamenei’s remark signals that Islamists see Western leftists like Rodriguez as useful idiots—disposable agents of subversion in a broader Islamic war against the West.¹¹ History offers a stark warning: during Iran’s 1979 revolution, leftists allied with Islamists to overthrow the Shah, only to be expelled, imprisoned, or executed within months once the Islamists consolidated power.¹²

Rodriguez’s alleged manifesto, posted on X before the attack, condemned Israel as a “genocidal apartheid state” and justified “armed action,” echoing Marxist-Leninist rhetoric. This document reflects the ideological extremism that has fueled antisemitic violence globally since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Such narratives weaponize terms like “genocide” and “apartheid” to dehumanize Jews and legitimize attacks. Rodriguez’s admiration for Aaron Bushnell, the U.S. airman who self-immolated outside the Israeli Embassy in 2024, reveals the radicalization pipeline that transforms anti-Israel rhetoric into deadly action.¹³

The Washington attack reveals U.S. vulnerability as a front in this global intifada. Rodriguez, a college-educated professional with no prior criminal record, was not a lone wolf but a product of an ecosystem that glorifies violence under the guise of “resistance.” His alleged ties to far-left groups highlight their role in amplifying antisemitic narratives, often in collaboration with Islamist organizations to promote a shared anti-Western, anti-Israel agenda. The phrase “bring the war home,” used in Rodriguez’s manifesto, is a direct call to destabilize the United States, aligning with the broader goal of undermining Western democracies.

This attack exposes the failure of mainstream institutions to confront rising antisemitism. The reluctance to condemn slogans like “globalize the intifada” as incitement has emboldened extremists. The murders should serve as a wake-up call, a deliberate strike against Jews and the U.S.-Israel alliance. Israel’s response, increasing security at embassies worldwide, reflects the threat’s gravity.¹⁴  Yet, countering this violence requires more than security—it demands dismantling the narratives that justify such acts.

The United States must recognize that “globalize the intifada” is a declaration of war on the values of freedom and democracy. A multi-pronged strategy is needed: de-platforming extremist voices, enforcing laws against incitement, and addressing foreign funding of anti-Western curricula. Universities, media, and political leaders must stop equivocating when faced with antisemitic rhetoric disguised as activism. The Washington murders are a tragic reminder that words have consequences, as AJC CEO Ted Deutch noted hours after the double murder.¹⁵

Rodriguez’s actions, rooted in a toxic ideology that fuses far-left radicalism with support for Islamist hatred for and “erasure” of Israel, constitute a clarion call for an equally radical remedy and action. The West cannot ignore the global intifada’s reach into its capitals. The United States, as the leader of the free world, must stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel against this common, palpable threat. The battle against antisemitism is no less a battle for the soul of American liberty and democracy. The deadly D.C. terror attack serves as a “red light” warning to all who cherish freedom: the Intifada has come to the West, and it will intensify unless confronted, dismantled, and squarely defeated.

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Notes