Who Is Elias Rodriguez?

Of course, we respect the free speech rights of nearly everyone. The same is true of the right to due process. And yet, the free speech absolutists in our midst forget the simple fact that incitement is not protected by the first amendment.

Recall that Justice Holmes once explained that you do not have a free speech right to yell “Fire!” in a crowded theatre.

Those who are defending the free speech rights of Palestinian jihadis should humble themselves in the face of the double murder committed by radical leftist Elias Rodriguez last night outside of the Jewish Museum in Washington.

Calling for Intifada, for erasing the Jewish people from the river to the sea-- these seemingly harmless slogans can easily incite violence. One might say that they are designed to incite violence against Jews. 

Rodriguez did not act in a vacuum. Undoubtedly, he sought heroic status among his fellow radical leftists. After all, aside from the fact that America’s leading academic institutions have been countenancing anti-Semitism, to the point of harassing Jews on campus, it is also true that one self-defined justice warrior, one Luigi Mangione, has been lionized for shooting a corporate executive in the back.

It ought not to be necessary, but we feel obliged to emphasize that Rodriguez is a leftist activist. He does not belong to the vast right wing conspiracy.

Andy Ngo explains this aspect:

Elias Rodriguez, the Chicago far-left activist accused of shooting dead two Israelis outside the Capital Jewish Museum, has a long history of support for BLM, Palestine, communist and anti-white causes. Those groups have been trying to scrub his associations with them by deleting articles and pages where he is mentioned. While being arrested after the killings, Rodriguez shouted, "Free, free Palestine!"

Leo Terrell, of the Justice Department, explained the larger context of the Rodriguez crime:

This goes far beyond the murder of two individuals. It reflects a systemic crisis of antisemitism—seen in the shooter’s hatred, the failure to enforce hate crime statutes, the institutions that helped shape him, and the media narratives that normalize or excuse antisemitism. This is not an isolated act—it is the result of a society that has allowed antisemitism to fester unchecked. This must stop now!

Liel Leibovitz offers a good analysis in the New York Post. He might have emphasized the notion of incitement, but he made clear that the current movement to Free Palestine-- rallying cry of the Washington shooter-- has nothing to do with Palestine or even with freedom in a region that only knows one free country. The slogan means, quite simply, being free to kill Jews.

The murder was a reminder, as if we needed another, that “free Palestine” is not about the war in Gaza, not about Israel’s response to Hamas’ atrocities on Oct. 7, not about the well-being of Palestinians or any other living beings.

“Free Palestine” is the rallying cry of a terrorist operation that is funded by foreign governments and designed to sow chaos, fear, and violence in America’s streets.

And in America’s universities.

Of course, it is sustained by a constant barrage of propaganda, designed to make Israel the villain and the Palestinians, innocent victims:

It’s a fight against the international organizations peddling modern-day blood libels, as the UN’s humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, did when he went on the BBC earlier this week and argued that unless the world stops Israel’s murderous spree, 14,000 Palestinian babies will die in Gaza in the next two days.

That this, if true, would be the equivalent of 27% of the death toll for the entire war, all babies, and all perishing in 48 hours, didn’t seem to trouble reporters and editors in major news outlets, who amplified Fletcher’s outlandish claim uncritically.

College presidents, Leibovitz explains, have become “witless enablers” of terrorism. 

On college campuses, our fight’s been going on for nearly two years now. We fight it even as university presidents and professors rush to defend thugs who assault Jewish students, disrupt classes, and disseminate terrorist propaganda.

The list of terror’s witless enablers is long. But there are still many more of us, normal Americans who refuse to accept a reality in which Jews are targeted and attacked by a death cult and in which Washington or New York or Chicago becomes just another Beirut, a bloody battlefield thick with jaunty jihadis.

He continues by offering a program to shut down extremist incitement rhetoric. In point of fact, the pro-Hamas left thrived under the Biden administration. Isn’t it more than a curiosity that Rodriguez contributed to the Biden presidential campaign.

We win by giving the Free Palestine brigades no quarter.

By rejecting candidates for office who support their cause and make excuses for their brutalities.

By demanding that institutions that foster them be denied any form of public funding and support.

By deporting every foreign national clucking about globalizing the Intifada.

By demanding that our law enforcement authorities treat these keffiyeh-clad thugs as domestic terrorists deserve to be treated.

Domestic terrorists are not exercising their free speech rights. They are not exercising their due process rights. By contrast examine the government, the Biden administration reaction to January 6:

When a gaggle of rioters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, 6,000 agents were assigned to work the case.

The murder in DC this week is every bit a fundamental, foundational assault on American democracy, and deserves equal or greater resources.

There is precedent. Liebovitz recalls the government reaction to the Ku Klux Klan in 1871:

This shouldn’t be a hard concept for us to grasp. In 1871, facing another murderous, Jew-hating militia, the Ku Klux Klan, Congress passed the Enforcement Act that gave the government wide-reaching power to do everything necessary, from deploying federal troops to suspending habeas corpus, to defeat these homegrown terrorists.

As of now, we should have some confidence that the Justice Department, under Pam Bondi, and the FBI, led by Kash Patel will work hard to prosecute young Elias Rodriguez.