Iranian regime media praises alleged DC Jewish museum shooter as ‘dear brother’

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Jewish museum event organizer recalls shooting: ‘I looked evil right in the eye’

JoJo Kalin, who organized the event at the Capital Jewish Museum, joins ‘America’s Newsroom’ to share her account of witnessing the aftermath of two Israeli Embassy staffers shot and killed outside the event.

JERUSALEM – The newspaper for the rogue regime of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei praised the man who allegedly murdered an American and Israeli Wednesday night in Washington, D.C., calling him “our dear brother.”

Elias Rodriguez, a 31-year-old Chicago man, allegedly told police and witnesses he had gunned down Sarah Milgrim, a 26-year-old American from Kansas, and her 30-year-old Israeli boyfriend, Yaron Lischinsky, “for Palestine . . . for Gaza.”

Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim were shot and killed as they left an event at the Capital Jewish Museum, pose for a picture at an unknown location, in this handout image released by Embassy of Israel to the U.S. on May 22, 2025.  (Embassy of Israel to the USA via X/Handout via Reuters)

“Our dear brother Elias Rodriguez, who killed two Israelis in the U.S., has founded the Washington Basij,” the newspaper wrote Saturday. The Basij is an Iranian para-military organization that is assigned to crush all dissent against Khamenei’s ironclad rule. 

The fiercely anti-American editor of Kayhan, Hossein Shariatmadari, asked, “Any news of our dear brother Elias Rodriguez, who sent two Zionist wild animals in Washington to hell with a bullet?”

The Iranian media’s glorification of the murders stunned even longtime regime watchers.

“Iran openly calls for terror attacks against Israel on U.S. soil. Kayhan, the mouthpiece of Supreme Leader Khamenei, praises the attack on Israeli embassy staff in Washington DC — one of whom was an American citizen — calling the killer the founder of the ‘Washington Basij,’ Iran’s brutal militia,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Oren Marmorstein, wrote on X. “Unfathomable.”

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The timing of the Khamenei-controlled newspaper’s editorial coincided with a report from Israel Hayom that the Trump administration is weighing the acceptance of an interim nuclear agreement with Iran. A senior U.S. official told the Israeli paper that the partial deal would mean Iran would abandon pursuit of nuclear weapons in exchange for limited sanctions relief. 

However, the clerical regime has repeatedly insisted it would never abandon the right to enrich uranium, which could enable Tehran to build an atomic bomb. Iran’s regime has been designated a leading state-sponsor of terrorism since the mid-1980s by the U.S. government. 

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Vatan-e-Emrooz, a newspaper controlled by the U.S.-designated terrorist organization Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, also glorified the assassinations of the pair, who were staff employees at the Israeli embassy. 

“These repulsive newspaper articles are a reminder that the Iranian regime is the leading state-sponsor of antisemitism,” Jason Brodsky, policy director of United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), told Fox News Digital. “Kayhan in the past has published articles praising Hitler, so the praising of the murder of two Israeli embassy employees, including a Jewish American, should sadly come as no surprise.”

Elias Rodriguez, the 31-year-old suspect accused of shooting two Israeli Embassy staffers on Wednesday, May 21, in Washington, D.C. (Instagram/@shinewithIsrael)

Brodsky said the media statements show that the regime cannot be trusted, and that the Trump administration should be wary when it holds talks to trade sanctions relief for a pledge not to pursue nuclear weapons.

“The true face of the Islamic Republic is represented by these articles, not its smiling diplomats at the negotiating tables of Oman and Rome,” he said.

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Iranian-born Israeli Beni Sabti, an expert on Iran and a research fellow for the Institute for National Security Studies, told Fox News Digital the threat of terror from his homeland is directed at the U.S.

“It’s very important that Americans understand that the terror is also or mostly against them,” he said.

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Sabti added that Vatan-e-Emrooz’s message of support of the murders means “the shooting was revenge by that guy and also in the Islamic tradition that Elias is the prophet Eliyahoo, who killed many infidels, so it’s a kind of phrase that Elias is a man of God when he killed those employees of the embassy.”

Benjamin Weinthal reports on Israel, Iran, Syria, Turkey and Europe. You can follow Benjamin on Twitter @BenWeinthal, and email him at benjamin.weinthal@fox.com