Elias Rodriguez allegedly shot two Israeli embassy staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., back in May. He reportedly yelled "Free Palestine" after his arrest. And now an organization founded by a woman about to be sworn into Congress wants you to know he's the real victim here.
The organization is Columbia University Apartheid Divest — CUAD — and its founder is Rep.-Elect Darializa Avila Chevalier.
Chevalier won her New York congressional seat this month and will take office in January as part of the 120th Congress. She founded CUAD during her time at Columbia University, where the group became one of the loudest anti-Israel voices on campus. Now that she's headed to Washington, CUAD published a statement in its outlet, The Barricade, that listed Rodriguez alongside other detained activists.
"In the USA, political prisoners like Casey Goonan, Tarek Bazrouk, and Elias Rodriguez are being held on inflated charges," the statement read.
Political prisoner. A man accused of shooting Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim — two people whose crime was being Israeli embassy staffers near a Jewish museum — is now a political prisoner.
The same statement declared: "Our Intifada is an internationalist one — we are fighting for nothing less than the liberation of all people." The word "Intifada" has a specific meaning. It refers to violent Palestinian uprisings that killed over a thousand Israelis across two campaigns. CUAD isn't borrowing the word loosely. They're using it with full knowledge of what it invokes.
This is the same organization that held a rally on October 8 — one day after Hamas murdered 1,200 Israelis and took 251 captives — to celebrate. Not to mourn. Not to call for peace. To celebrate.
As Twitchy reported, the statement didn't arrive in a vacuum. Chevalier was handpicked for the congressional race by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has his own history of anti-Israel activism. The pipeline from campus radical to sitting member of Congress ran through the mayor's office.
The usual defense is ready: anti-Zionism isn't antisemitism, criticism of Israel isn't hatred of Jews, the charges are inflated, the real violence is the occupation. We've heard the script. But the script has a problem. Rodriguez didn't shoot an Israeli military outpost. He shot two people outside a Jewish museum in the American capital. Calling that political persecution doesn't redefine the act. It reveals the caller.
Chevalier will be voting on foreign aid packages, defense authorizations, and resolutions involving Israel within weeks of being sworn in. She'll sit in the same chamber where members condemned the October 7 attacks. Her own organization just called a man who shot Jews a political prisoner and declared its mission an "Intifada."
She takes office in January. The statement is still up.