TERRORISMIn Latest Attack on Jewish Community, Suspect in Museum Shooting Posted Manifesto Calling to 'Bring the War Home'

On the evening of May 21, 2025, shortly after 9:00 pm, Elias Rodriguez, 30, of Chicago, Illinois, allegedly shot and killed two Israeli embassy staff members as they were leaving an AJC (American Jewish Committee) Young Diplomats event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington DC. As he was taken into custody, Rodriguez shouted, “Free, free Palestine.”

An online manifesto posted on X lays out the reasons for the attack. The ADL Center on Extremism has been able to connect the alleged suspect, with a high degree of certainty, to the X account and the manifesto, shared under the heading “Escalate For Gaza, Bring The War Home” — slogans commonly used by anti-Israel activists, particularly in more extreme, militant spaces.

Extreme Anti-Israel Beliefs
The text of Rodriguez’s alleged manifesto reflected an apparent trajectory of radicalization as the author stated that non-violent protests against Israel’s actions in Gaza have been insufficient and that the “perpetrators and abettors” of genocide have “forfeited their humanity.” The author noted that “nonviolent protest in the opening weeks of the genocide seemed to signal some sort of turning point…But thus far the rhetoric has not amounted to much.” It then went on to praise Aaron Bushnell, the 25-year-old active-duty United States Airman who died after setting himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., on February 25, 2024. 

The manifesto concluded with a section about “the morality of armed demonstration,” in which the author commented that “the action would have been morally justified taken 11 years ago during Protective Edge [Israel’s name for its military operation in the 2014 Gaza war], around the time I personally became acutely aware of our brutal conduct in Palestine,” but acknowledged that such an action would have seemed “illegible” or “insane” to “most Americans” at the time. He concluded that now, in 2025, armed action seems like “the only sane thing to do.” The author signed off with “Free Palestine.” 

Additional posts made by the X account over the past 20 months echo similarly extreme anti-Israel sentiments, such as language in one post declaring “Death To Israel” and in another calling a Jewish individual a “zionazi [sic].”