The Hideous "Free Elias Rodriguez Committee"

A bold attempt to make the killer a hero

Well, I didn’t think murderer Elias Rodriguez would be labeled a hero so quickly. Total naivete on my part. I should have seen it coming.

Last week, Rodriguez at point-blank range murdered Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgren as they left an American Jewish Committee meeting at DC’s Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum.

After he fired 21 bullets into them, of course, the courageous Rodriquez shouted “Free, Free Palestine.”

Sarah had not yet been buried when a Middle East-based Palestinian organization began heralding Elias Rodriguez as an American hero.

The Tariq El-Tahrir Youth and Student Network, an obscure Middle Eastern-based group created the “Free Elias Rodriguez Organizing Committee” and sought American and international co-sponsors. Twenty-nine groups publicly signed onto its manifesto.

Tariq El-Tahrir hails Elias Rodriguez as a “resistance” fighter. And they warn of more killings to come.

The “student” group clearly is a creation of Middle Eastern terrorist organizations and sold to America as a homegrown organization. There is no actual physical address listed for the group.

But that didn’t deter 29 groups, a number of them American, who enthusiastically signed on to the shameful manifesto.

One of the most prominent signatories was the Maoist wing of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Forty-six unnamed individuals also allegedly signed onto the document, according to their site. Quite a few of the signatories were from the Middle East.

Their manifesto was titled, “Free Rodriguez: Build The International Popular Cradle of Resistance.”

Here’s their warning: “The time has now come for real consequences.” The assassination of Sarah and Yaron “is only the beginning of this battle.”

The organizations that signed the manifesto called Rodriguez “an avatar of our movement,” adding, “Again, we have no choice but to defend Elias Rodriguez. All the better that his actions are eminently defensible and morally righteous.”

Utilizing typical anti-Israel and pro-Hamas rhetoric, the committee added, “Opponents of imperialism, zionism, and genocide must rally to defend Elias Rodriguez, and through this defense support the legitimacy and necessity of resistance itself.”

Predictably, the committee also opportunistically links Rodriquez to murderer Luigi Mangione, who last December gunned down UnitedHealthCare’s CEO.

The coalition claimed that both killings “helped to balance the scales of justice.”

Bronx Antiwar, one of the original signatories applauded the manifesto, linked to it and wrote on X, “Elias Rodriguez is paving the way for resistance in the West, leading by example and moving beyond mere symbolic gestures or rhetorical support for the Palestinian cause. We endorse this statement and encourage all other organizations to do so as well.”

The Tariq El-Tahrir Youth and Student Network prominently honors George Habash a terrorist who founded the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The U.S., Canada, the European Union, Israel, and Japan have declared that the PFLP is a designated terrorist group.

Habash was the mastermind behind the 1970 hijacking of four Western airplanes which were flown to Jordan. He blew up all the planes, which gave rise to Black September, the group best known for the kidnapping and killing Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics.

As noted, included among the signatories is DSA’s “Marxist-Leninist-Maoist wing.”

DSA includes prominent Democrats including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the congressional “Squad” and Zohran Mamdani a leading mayoral candidate in New York City’s upcoming Democratic primary.

But the DSA disassociated itself from the statement, stating on the Internet that they “reject vigilante violence.”

And Ocasio-Cortez and Mamdani also rejected the cold-blooded murderer.

Interestingly, last year DSA dropped its endorsement of Ocasio-Cortez after she hosted a panel discussion on antisemitism. And at an Ocasio-Cortez political rally, a group of DSA activists condemned her, chanting, “AOC, you can’t hide, you’re supporting genocide.”

It appears that the phony student group also is associated with Masar Badil and the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement (PARPM). The Masar site promotes the “student” group on its website.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) concluded that Masar Badil and the PARPM is associated with Samidoun and considered a “sham charity” which is tied to the PFLP.

The ADL reports:

Masar Badil, also known as the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, is a transnational extreme anti-Zionist organization. Its activities include co-hosting events and rallies with the terror-connected and fellow extreme anti-Zionist organization Samidoun, publishing inflammatory statements that glorify violence against the State of Israel and Zionists and hosting webinars featuring members of U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) Hamas and Ansar Allah (the Houthis).

Masar Badil is closely associated and shares some of its leadership with Samidoun, which was sanctioned in October 2024 by the U.S. and Canadian governments as a “sham charity” and international fundraiser for the U.S.-designated terrorist group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The most prominent of these leaders is Khaled Barakat, who was personally sanctioned by the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) as a Specially Designated National (SDN) for having acted or purported to act for or on behalf, directly or indirectly, of the PFLP.

The Tariq El-Tahrir group quotes Habash as instructing them that “The duty of the revolutionary youth is not just to resist, but to understand the nature of the enemy—imperialism, Zionism, and reactionary regimes—and to strike at them with unwavering determination.”

As the “student group” warns the Jewish community: “from this point forward, accountability is coming, swift, unforgiving and unrelenting.”

Watch out…