The Language Of Radicalism

How far-left ideology turned Elias Rodriguez into a cold-blooded killer.

Elias Rodriguez, left, gunned down Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, right.

by Ben Cohen

The killing of two Jews in Washington D.C. last week should serve as a dire warning about the destructive capacity of far-left activism.

Elias Rodriguez gunned down Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, a young couple who worked at the Israeli embassy, as they left an event at the Capital Jewish Museum. In the hours after the shooting, Rodriguez posted a manifesto online that is as chilling as it is revealing. A pro-Palestinian activist, Rodriguez laid out his despair over the war in Gaza. But beneath the moral anguish was something far more dangerous: a worldview that reduces humanity to categories of oppressor and oppressed — which ultimately granted him moral license to annihilate.

Rodriguez’s manifesto illustrates how radical ideology seduces young minds and turns intelligent, thoughtful people into murdering extremists. It begins in empathy —outrage at suffering, a desire to protect the vulnera…