Is This the Manifesto Written by the Shooter Who Assassinated Israeli Embassy Staffers in DC?

Israeli Embassy staffers probably expected a quiet evening. They were set to attend an event for young diplomats at the Capital Jewish Museum on Wednesday night in Washington, DC. They would be cut down by gunfire by a rabid antisemite, Elias Rodriguez, who shouted, “Free Palestine,” as he was taken into custody by police.

It was a political assassination. And this might be a manifesto posted by Rodriguez before the attack (via Times of Israel):

The purported manifesto of the suspected gunman in Washington’s Jewish museum shooting posted online Wednesday night defended using “armed action” to protest what he called the “genocide” being carried out against Palestinians in Gaza.

The statement, posted on the social media platform X at exactly 10 p.m. local time, less than an hour after the shooting, was signed by Elias Rodriguez, the name of the suspect arrested by police. It could have been a scheduled post or posted by a third party; its accuracy has not been verified.

[…]

The approximately 900-word online statement mentions the high death toll in Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza and references US Air Force serviceman Aaron Bushnell — who died after setting himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington in February 2024 to protest the war — as on of those who “sacrificed themselves in the hopes of stopping the massacre.”

The statement also expresses dissatisfaction with American support for Israel, claiming that while public opinion has shifted against the Jewish state, “the American government has simply shrugged, they’ll do without public opinion then, criminalize it where they can, suffocate it with bland reassurances that they’re doing all they can to restrain Israel where it cannot criminalize protest outright.”

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