Terrorist Who Killed Israeli Embassy Staffers Was Influenced By A Foreign-Linked Leftist Org

The terrorist who killed two Israeli embassy staffers was once affiliated with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, a leftist group linked to Chinese Communist Party funding networks that have been repeatedly contacted by sanctioned Iranian state media, according to a report.

Elias Rodriguez, 30, of Chicago, was detained by police on suspicion of murdering Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Milgrim, 28 — two Israeli embassy staffers — on Wednesday night in Washington, D.C. The couple was shot at close range. According to police, the terrorist shouted “Free Palestine” while being taken into custody.

The shooter was quickly identified in a picture on a 2017 article posted on LiberationNews.org, the media wing of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), where he was at a protest holding an anti-capitalist sign from the ANSWER Coalition. In the article, which was deleted after the attack, the shooter was quoted and described as “from the Party for Socialism and Liberation.”

PSL posted a statement distancing itself from the shooter, claiming the group and the shooter only had a “brief association” that ended in 2017.

“We reject any attempt to associate the PSL with the DC shooting,” the group posted to X. “Elias Rodriguez is not a member of the PSL. He had a brief association with one branch of the PSL that ended in 2017. We know of no contact with him in over 7 years. We have nothing to do with this shooting and do not support it.”

According to a report by Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), both PSL and ANSWER leaders have ties to foreign governments, including China, Iran, and Russia. The report states that ANSWER operates under the fiscal sponsorship of the Progress Unity Fund (PUF), which has financial and personnel ties to Neville Roy Singham, a pro-CCP financier in Shanghai.

PSL and ANSWER are sister organizations, and their leaders hold overlapping roles in Singham’s network, including with CODE PINK and The People’s Forum, according to NCRI.

Both PSL and ANSWER are radical leftist organizations that have organized anti-Israel protests and mobilization efforts.

In July 2024, then-Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-GA) recommended ANSWER for investigation for violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) over its ties to Beijing.

Senior leadership of PSL and ANSWER were also called by the sanctioned Iranian state outlet PressTV over 200 times in a 29-month period, according to call detail records obtained by NCRI that were first archived by the whistleblowing DDoSecrets group.

One of the top-contacted individuals by PressTV in the 2019-2022 period was the national coordinator for ANSWER, Brian Becker, who is also a founder and central organizer of PSL, according to NCRI. He was reportedly called over 69 times. Gloria La Riva, a PSL candidate for president in 2020, was contacted 46 times by PressTV.

According to emails obtained by NCRI, there were a number of booking requests for ANSWER and PSL-affiliated individuals, including Becker’s brother, Richard Becker, who served as the Western Region Coordinator of ANSWER. Richard received 10 booking requests between January and May of 2019 and was offered $1,000 in compensation, though it is unclear if he accepted.

Brian Becker also hosted a podcast on Russia’s state-owned Sputnik Radio from 2015 until September 2020, according to the report.

An anonymous X account believed to belong to Rodriguez shows an extensive history of anti-Israel and far-leftist rhetoric, including videos of now-deceased Hezbollah leader Sayyed Nasrallah and retweeting a post after the 2024 presidential election that stated, “Don’t blame me, I voted for Hamas.”

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About one hour before the shooting, a manifesto was posted on the account titled “Escalate for Gaza, Bring The War Home.” The manifesto’s author wrote, “humanity doesn’t exempt one from accountability,” and said that many Americans may view “action” as “the only sane thing to do.”

“I think to most Americans such an action would have been illegible, would seem insane,” the post states. “I am glad that today at least there are many Americans for which the action will be highly legible and, in some funny way, the only sane thing to do.”

The last account followed by the anonymous account believed to belong to Rodriguez, was that of the American Jewish Committee — the same organization that hosted the event where Lischinsky and Milgrim were shot.

PSL and ANSWER did not immediately respond to a request for comment.