At 12:52 a.m., just minutes after the name of one of the victims of the Capital Jewish Museum attack began to trickle out online, a social media user by the name of Mejd S tweeted a short message: “F— Yaron Lischinsky.”
Ten minutes earlier, Mejd had trawled Lischinsky’s profile on X, where the Israeli embassy staffer had posted a stream of Israeli diplomatic talking points — that Hamas is the main obstacle to aid distribution in Gaza, that the group embeds among civilians and that international law courts trying Israel are illegitimate.
For Mejd, that was enough to conclude that Lischinsky “loved baby murder.” He added, “Lol I dont feel sorry for this freak rest in piss.”
The post has been shared dozens of times. As of 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, it has 11,000 views.
Mejd’s post may have been one of the first to justify the murder of two Israeli embassy employees at a Jewish event in Washington, D.C. Wednesday night, but it was hardly the most popular. Some who have used the “Free Palestine” slogan the shooter repeated, or that once had ties to him, are disavowing him under criticism from pro-Israel activists. But a range of hardline pro-Palestinian social media accounts are praising the attack or paying homage to the man who allegedly committed it, Elias Rodriguez.
“The Israeli embassy workers were not murdered for being Jewish, this is a ridiculous lie to fear monger,” read one tweet that has been reposted hundreds of times. “They were targeted because they are cogs in a genocidal machine. They served a government openly planning to expel 2 million people from their homes.”
Another said: “Anyone who supports or is a party to the injustice, suffering, & genocide that Palestinians have been subjected to deserves zero empathy from me. If they’re put down I will celebrate it just as I would’ve celebrated in 1945 when Hitler’s brain matter hit the wall of his bunker.”
The name of that X profile is “More Elias, More Rodney, More Luigi.” The latter name is a reference to Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing a UnitedHealthcare executive in New York City. The “Free Luigi” movement that swelled in the wake of that murder, celebrating it as an act of resistance against an unjust system, is now seeing hints of being replicated for Rodriguez.
“We all gonna have the same energy for Elias Rodriguez that we did for Luigi,” posted one TikTok user. “No one is untouchable. FREE PALESTINE.”
Several $ELIAS meme coins, or fad cryptocurrencies, have already been created — and have been skyrocketing since Wednesday night. Such coins are often a ploy to make quick money and frequently decrease in value soon after they appear. In one recent example, Mo Khan, who was involved in an antisemitic sign recently being paraded through a Philadelphia bar, later received payment in the form of another antisemitic meme coin, called $JPROOF.
To be sure, the celebrations of Rodriguez — and the shooting — are on the fringe, and are hardly the first time an attacker has been celebrated for their bloodshed. Far-right groups celebrate the gunmen in the 2015 Charleston church shooting and the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. The man who killed six people at a California university in 2014 is a hero in misogynist “incel” circles.
Voices across the spectrum have condemned Wednesday’s shooting of Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, including some of the most prominent pro-Palestinian politicians. New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani wrote that he was “horrified” by the shooting and denounced antisemitism.
So did Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who tweeted, “Absolutely nothing justifies the murder of innocents,” and Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who said she was “appalled by the deadly shooting at the Capital Jewish Museum last night.”
One organization to which Rodriguez once belonged also distanced itself.
“We reject any attempt to associate the PSL with the DC shooting,” tweeted the far-left Party for Socialism and Liberation. “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.”
The group also said a bumper sticker calling to “exterminate Zionists,” and bearing its name, was “a fake.”
The group’s post opposing the shooting drew backlash from pro- and anti-Israel voices alike. Israel advocates pointed to instances when the group had called for “intifada,” a tern referring to violent Palestinian uprisings.
Another user had a different take.
“Lmao,” tweeted an account named “oct 7th enjoyer.” “Of course they would distance themselves from the very best thing any of their members, past or present, has ever accomplished.”
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