Killings Echo Earlier Assassination of Israeli Diplomat

New York Times

22-05-2025

More than 50 years ago, an Israeli diplomat was gunned down in his driveway in suburban Maryland after returning from a dinner party.
On Wednesday night, two staff members at the Israeli Embassy were fatally shot as they left an event organized by the American Jewish Committee at the Capital Jewish Museum. The suspect, the police say, shouted, 'Free, free Palestine,' after he was in custody.
The earlier case remained unsolved, but the parallels between the shootings are stark, echoing a combustible chapter in Israeli-Palestinian relations in which violence flared around the globe.
'It was a time of heightened tensions between Palestinians and Israelis just as they are today,' said Eugene Casey, a retired F.B.I. agent who investigated the killing of Col. Yosef Alon, the military attaché who was shot five times.
Since Hamas's devastating attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel's large-scale response, pro-Palestinian protests spread across the United States, including at Israeli consulates and college campuses, during the grinding conflict in Gaza.
The Trump administration and Israel are among those who have accused the protesters of promoting antisemitism and inciting violence against Jews with inflammatory rhetoric. Demonstrators and their supporters have denied the accusations and most of the protests have been nonviolent.
'Some believe the Oct. 7 terror attack was a just solution to a political problem,' said Lara Burns, a retired F.B.I. agent who investigated Hamas for years. 'And the normalization of that narrative provides a foundation for the advocacy of violence against the Jewish people and it manifested itself yesterday. '
'The conflict is not just limited to the Middle East,' added Ms. Burns, who leads terrorism research at George Washington University's Program on Extremism. 'And it is on our doorstep today.'
Before Colonel Alon's murder, tensions were also high across the world and in the United States. Months earlier, members of a Palestinian terrorist group known as Black September attacked Israeli citizens on German soil at the 1972 Olympic Games. The events played out on live television, shocking viewers.
To promote their cause, a terrorist with suspected ties to Black September tried to detonate three car bombs in New York City in March 1973. The bombs were timed to coincide with a visit by Prime Minister Golda Meir of Israel.
Eventually, the violence arrived at the doorstep of Mr. Alon, a decorated fighter pilot who had settled in Chevy Chase, Md., with his wife and three daughters. He had been sent to the United States to make sure that Israel had access to advanced fighters in the event of war with surrounding Arab countries.
After he arrived home that night, parking in his driveway, his wife exited the car first, gunshots ringing out the second she reached the porch. The attackers fled and she was spared. The assassination triggered a major F.B.I. investigation.
Mr. Alon's killing was never solved, though the C.I.A. suspected Palestinian terrorists carried out the plot. As part of his investigation, Mr. Casey interviewed Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, the Venezuelan terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal who is imprisoned in France.
He told Mr. Casey that Americans who sympathized with the plight of the Palestinians were behind the operation. Mr. Casey retired before he could interview a list of people who might have been involved, leaving the case unsolved.
By contrast, a suspect was quickly identified in the shooting late Wednesday. The police, naming the gunman as Elias Rodriguez, 30, said he was spotted pacing in front of the museum beforehand. He approached four people who were leaving the event, shooting two embassy aides and then entered the museum, where he was detained by security officers. Investigators descended on his home in Chicago the next day.
The F.B.I. was investigating whether he left behind clues pointing to the reasons behind the attack, a law enforcement official said, and whether the shooting was indeed a hate crime. A post on social media on Wednesday night from an account that The New York Times verified as belonging to the suspect condemned the Israeli and American governments. His writings also cite Israeli military actions against Palestinians, but they do not mention the approximately 1,200 men, women and children slain on Oct. 7 in Israel, the single deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
Despite the similarities in the two cases, there is one important difference, Mr. Casey said.
'It's tragic, but the families will have some closure,' he said. 'I was glad the guy was captured at the scene unlike our case. I wish we had DNA back in 1973. There will be no open questions about who killed them.'
Mr. Casey said he still felt 'terrible' that Mr. Alon's case remained unsolved. In the wake of the latest killings, he added, he hoped the F.B.I. picks up where he left off in 2017 and finally puts the case to rest.