A week on from the murder of Israeli embassy workers Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgram in DC, multiple pro-Palestine and Marxist groups have rallied behind the attacker, Elias Rodriguez, and announced campaigns to free him.
The most prominent of these campaigns was started by Unity of Fields – formerly known as Palestine Action US – which announced a "Free Elias Rodriguez Organizing Committee" on Monday. The campaign is co-signed by 28 other pro-Palestine or Marxist groups, including Palestine News Network (PNN), The United Liberation Front for Palestine, the Chinese Palestine Solidarity Action Network, DSA Liberation Caucus, the Bronx Anti-War coalition, and Tariq el-Tahrir Youth and Student Network.
The campaign statement calls Elias Rodriguez’s murder of the two embassy workers on May 21 "a legitimate act of resistance against the zionist state and its genocidal campaign in Gaza."
"The time has now come for real consequences; they have left no other option," it added.
The statement then launched into a multi-paragraph diatribe about Zionist supremacy and imperialism, before adding that "in this light, the operation conducted by Elias Rodriguez against Israel’s diplomatic functionaries in Washington DC—people actively engaged in facilitating this comprehensive violence across the globe by creating the diplomatic space to continue and deepen it—was, by his own account, a declaration of ENOUGH!"
"Such counter-violence is legitimate, it is justice."
Allegedly citing international law, the statement said "Elias Rodriguez’s act was fully justified, at that place where legal and moral duties meet," according to the "duty" under IHL "to take action to stop genocide, including the use of violence to do so." UoF acknowledged that this duty is attributed to states, but said that due to the lack of "sufficient action" from states, the action must be done by "non-state actors."
"Elias Rodriguez exacted a consequence, a mere drop in the bucket of consequences due to the zionist movement and its military garrison of a state," it continued. "May it redound to teach a lesson and set an example."
The campaign urged "opponents of imperialism, zionism, and genocide to rally to defend Elias Rodriguez, and through this defense support the legitimacy and necessity of resistance itself."
"If we allow them to silently kill Elias Rodriguez, if we sit back and watch or allow ourselves to forget his resistance, then they will have also killed a part of our movement, a part of us; that part that yearns for justice against the outrageous and humiliating impunity of this system of genocide and, indeed, biocide. Again, we have no choice but to defend Elias Rodriguez."
The statement ended with a call for people to mail letters to Rodriguez, send monetary support, attend his court hearings, and "raise voices."
The Democratic Socialists of America's Liberation Caucus – a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist caucus within the DSA – supported UoF's petition and wrote, "Free Elias Rodriguez and all political prisoners."
In response to the DSA itself condemning the murder of the two, Unity of Fields reposted a tweet saying, "What did y'all think decolonization meant? vibes? papers? essays?"
UoF also called on DSA mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani to "commend the DSA Liberation Caucus for upholding Elias Rodriguez's righteous action, which is the most anyone in this country has done for Palestine."
Separately from UoF's campaign, Samidoun co-founder Charlotte Kates published a series of tweets in defense of Rodriguez, referring to the two victims as legitimate targets.
"Zionist embassy staff" are the closest thing to IOF soldiers you'll find in most countries," Kates wrote. "There is no conversation in which Zionist embassies should be considered anything other than active outposts of the genocidal entity; the representatives of Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir, Smotrich, and the rest around the world."
"Considering official representatives of the genocidal entity as 'innocent' and 'precious' is nothing other than normalization of genocide."
She also referred to Yaron Lischinsky as "the German Christian who went to Palestine to serve in the occupation army and then market the genocide internationally as its agent," and included screenshots of previous posts by Lischinsky where he praised the IDF.
"The occupation has no "right to exist," and the assassination of the political AND military leadership of people under occupation and colonialism is entirely illegitimate," she added.
Terror-supporting groups
It is worth noting that Samidoun has been a proscribed terror organization in both the US and Canada since October 2024. The proscription came as a result of Samidoun's role as “a sham charity” for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
Other groups on the UoF's campaign signature list have also been accused of supporting terrorist groups in the past.
The Bronx Anti-War Coalition flew a banner featuring the flags of Hamas’s Izzadin al-Qassam Brigades, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades in a NYC anti-Israel march in September 2024.
