From Azerbaijan, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and the Palestinian Authority, how has the Muslim world reacted to the brutal murder of two staffers at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC?
By Rachel Avraham
On the evening of May 21, 2025, shortly after 9:00 pm, Elias Rodriguez, 30, of Chicago, Illinois, murdered in cold blood two Israeli embassy staff members as they were leaving an AJC (American Jewish Committee) Young Diplomats event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington DC. As he was taken into custody, Rodriguez shouted, “Free, free Palestine.” The question remains, how has the Muslim world reacted to the brutal murder of two staffers at the Israeli Embassy outside of the Jewish Museum in Washington, DC?
It is critical to note that some countries in the Islamic world did condemn these horrific double murders and express solidarity with Israel following this antisemitic terror attack. The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry has extended its condolences to Israel following the tragic deaths of two Israeli diplomats in a violent attack in Washington, Azernews reports. In a post shared on the Ministry’s official “X” (formerly Twitter) account, the statement read: “We extend our deepest condolences to the State of Israel and the families of two Israeli diplomats who were killed as a result of heinous attack in Washington D.C.. We strongly condemn this cowardly act of violence, which seeks to sow fear and division.”
According to the website of the Foreign Ministry of the United Arab Emirates, “The United Arab Emirates has strongly condemned the shooting incident that resulted in the killing of two Israeli embassy employees in Washington DC, and expressed its strong denunciation of these criminal acts. In a statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) expressed its sincere condolences, sympathy and solidarity with the families of the victims, and with the people of Israel over this heinous attack.”
However, Palestinian Media Watch reported that Former Jordanian Minister of Interior Mazen Turki El-Qadi’s Communications Office decided to brutally attack the victims rather than the perpetrators: “It may be that the incident in Washington (i.e., murder of 2 Israeli Embassy staff) was planned by Israel, in order to lessen the Western-American pressure on the state of the entity (i.e., Israel), under so-called Antisemitism.”
According to MEMRI, a few hours after the murder of the two Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington, the Telegram account of the Hamas-affiliated Shehab News Agency posted a photo of suspect Elias Rodriguez, writing: “[Soar] high like an eagle.” Expressing similar sentiments, the X account of the Gaza Now website – Gaza Now was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department as a “key financial facilitator involved in fundraising for Hamas” in March 2024 – also praised Rodriguez. One post referred to him as “a resistance fighter,” and stated: “In a moment of courage, he decided to raise his voice to the world and to bravely confront the murderers. He fired, killed one of the Israeli clerks [sic], stood and issued his challenge while restrained, and in so doing raised the flag of justice against the oppressor…”
Another post on the Gaza Now X account compared Rodriguez to slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, with photos of them side by side and stating: “Even though he isn’t a Muslim, he has an active conscience, like the conscience of Yahya Sinwar. He carried out his brave act in the heart of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, to avenge the children of Gaza. He killed two Zionist terrorists and then sat down resolutely and crossed his legs. He proved that conscience has no religion, but [takes] a stand.”
According to MEMRI, following the brutal terror attack in Washington, DC, Qatari journalist Abdallah Alamadi, a columnist for the Qatar government daily Al-Sharq, called for more attacks targeting Israeli Embassies in Arab countries that maintain diplomatic relations with Israel. On his X account, he shared a photo of the Washington D.C. attacker, Elias Rodriguez, alongside a report on the attack, writing: “Imagine, where would the Zionists be if there emerged an Egyptian Rodriguez, a Jordanian, an Emirati too, a fourth from Bahrain, and a fifth from Morocco?”
Adnan Alhussein, a journalist and supervisor at the editing team of Al Jazeera’s fact-checking Sanad Agency, wrote on his X account: “The leftist writer [who works] for ‘The HistoryMakers’ organization, Elias Rodriguez, shot dead two employees of the Israeli Embassy in Washington. He waited for the police and told them it was for Gaza, [and yelled:] ‘Free Palestine’. This is the curse of Palestinian blood and the blood of Gaza on the world.”
Mohammad Al-Mukhtar Al-Shinqiti, a member of the Internation Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), which is backed and funded by Qatar, who is also a lecturer at Qatar University, shared on his X account the video of the D.C. attacker being apprehended, writing in English: “A young American, #eliasrodriguez, killed 2 employees of the #Israel embassy in DC, chanting #FreePalestine. All decent humans, from all faiths, stand against #GazaGenocide, except Israel’s slaves in Washington and Washington’s slaves in the Arab world.”
Anti-Israel organizations in America, who represent the Palestinian cause in the United States, also spoke out in solidarity with the terrorist. According to the Anti-Defamation League, Masar Badil, a transnational anti-Israel organization connected to the terror-affiliated group Samidoun, wrote that the shooting “targeting employees of the ‘Israeli’ embassy, is a natural consequence of the Zionist entity’s crimes in the Gaza Strip.” Charlotte Kates, international coordinator of Samidoun, responded: “It should surprise…no one at all that people will act when there is no accountability whatsoever imposed upon that genocidal regime…Genocide has to have consequences.”
The Anti-Defamation League added that Unity of Fields (formerly Palestine Action U.S.), a far-left anti-Zionist “direct action network” that supports the targeting of “Zionist” individuals and institutions, retweeted Kates’s response and additionally commented: “We ain’t condemning shit” and “FREE ELIAS RODRIGUEZ!” According to the anti-Defamation League, the group also published a zine of Rodriguez’s alleged manifesto — emphasizing his use of the “Escalate For Gaza, Bring The War Home” language, alongside an image of a gun — and referred to him as a “political prisoner,” as federal authorities investigate the terror attack.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, the Bronx Anti-War Coalition, a radical New York-based anti-Israel group, wrote on X: “What Elias Rodriguez did is the highest expression of anti-Zionism.” In a similar post to its Telegram channel, the group added: “We need more Elias Rodriguez in the world.”
Photo from KENS 5: Your San Antonio News Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52Mvzrl7nXY
