Elias Rodriguez has been charged with murdering two low-level Israeli embassy staffers in an apparent act of protest in solidarity with Palestine. Already, the imperialists and their media have cynically used this to justify their support for the ongoing genocide in Gaza and their anti-democratic attacks on the pro-Palestine movement.
Communists do not support this attack. We are opposed to individual terrorism, because we understand that such acts will do nothing to stop the genocide in Gaza and only play into the hands of Netanyahu and his American backers. But we must be crystal clear here: the real violence comes from the imperialists in the US and Israel and the system they defend.
The named and the unnamed
Within minutes of the shooting, the Zionist establishment and their backers in the West were on the offensive against anyone who opposes the slaughter of tens of thousands of Palestinians, using their usual tactic of falsely conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism.
“We are witnessing the terrible price of antisemitism and the wild incitement against the State of Israel. The blood libels against Israel are paid in blood, and we must fight them relentlessly,” proclaimed Netanyahu.
Trump was quick to add his voice to the hypocritical chorus: “These horrible D.C. killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, NOW! Hatred and radicalism have no place in the USA.”
Meanwhile, the mainstream media has linked the incident to an apparent wave of “antisemitic” attacks against all Jews since the beginning of the war almost two years ago.
The names and photos of the two Israeli embassy staffers, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, are now flooding the mainstream news. Many are already noticing a cynical double standard by the mainstream media: we are told everything about the victims, their ages, likes, dislikes, lives lived, love story, and much more. Meanwhile, we hear next to nothing about the 60 nameless Palestinians who were murdered by Israeli air strikes in Gaza over the past 24 hours alone.
In fact, the war has entered its most catastrophic phase to date. According to the UN, 14,000 children are at risk of imminent death by starvation since all two million Gazans have been denied aid and food by an Israeli blockade over the last eleven weeks. Meanwhile, Israeli settlers have intensified their rampages in the West Bank, and a new ground offensive is underway in Gaza, with the stated aim of depopulating and occupying the entire territory. This will surely take the already staggering death count of a minimum of 53,000—including 16,000 children—to unimaginable levels.
After 19 months of mobilization and PTSD-inducing slaughter, Israeli society is exhausted and deeply divided. A majority are now against the war and favor any deal that can release the hostages. In fact, most Israelis now see the war for what it is: a cynical ploy by Netanyahu to stay in power with absolutely no regard for the hostages still held by Hamas. Most Americans, too, now oppose the murderous actions of the Zionists.
The deaths of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim are being used in the exact same way that the hostages have been: as an excuse for the Israeli ruling class to carry out their decades-old agenda of fully removing the Palestinians from the land that they have occupied for thousands of years.
This is the grim reality of the situation, and shows that the Zionist ruling class is anything but the “defender of the Jews” it pretends to be. The cynicism, hypocrisy, and dishonesty of the Zionists and imperialists knows no bounds.
How we can fight back
In the US, Donald Trump has relentlessly targeted pro-Palestine protestors since retaking the White House. We can be sure that this recent shooting will be used to further those aims.
Elias Rodriguez’s past, brief association with leftist protestors will end up being used to slander socialist groups as well as all pro-Palestine activists.
Again, this is nothing but a cynical attack against the democratic right to protest, which both ruling class parties gladly attack when it’s politically convenient—the First Amendment be damned.
This is one reason communists reject individual terrorism—it’s entirely counterproductive. For one, isolated individuals cannot substitute themselves for the working class, which is the only force in society that can overturn US imperialism. There is no replacement for mass, collective struggle, which will raise the working class’s sights to its own immense power as a class. Moreover, isolated attacks offer the capitalist state an easy excuse to target the workers’ movement, and to distract from the mass violence they are raining on the heads of innocent people around the world.
As the imperialists continue to support war and genocide, it should come as no surprise that individuals who feel powerless try to take the fight into their own hands. But while as individuals we are weak, together we are strong. The best thing that pro-Palestinian workers and youth can do in the US to fight the genocide is to get organized for the fight to overthrow the US capitalist system that enables it. This is why we need a revolutionary party. To anyone who shares our conviction to end the genocide, to anyone who wants to fight imperialism and Zionism and win, we strongly urge you that you take the only politically effective path to ending US imperialism: join the Revolutionary Communists of America.
