USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, Sept. 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

Iran on Thursday warned it would hold the United States responsible for any Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities, following reports that Israel could strike Iranian nuclear sites if ongoing negotiations between Washington and the Islamic regime fail.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi sent a letter to the United Nations threatening to relocate Iran’s nuclear material to undisclosed sites to safeguard it from a possible Israeli military strike.

“Iran strongly warns against any adventurism by the Israeli Zionist regime and will respond decisively to any threats or unlawful actions by this regime,” the letter read.

“We also believe that if any attack is carried out against the nuclear facilities of the Islamic Republic of Iran by the Israeli regime, the US government will be complicit and bear legal responsibility,” the top Iranian diplomat wrote.

In a letter to the UN SG & UNSC, Iran’s Foreign Minister warned of catastrophic consequences after alarming reports emerged quoting U.S. sources that the Zionist regime of Israel is preparing to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities and sites. He urged an urgent, decisive response & a… pic.twitter.com/SEo1BEJwgw

— I.R.IRAN Mission to UN, NY (@Iran_UN) May 22, 2025

If Tehran moves its nuclear material to undisclosed locations, it could derail ongoing negotiations by denying the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) — which has sought to maintain access to monitor the country’s nuclear program — the ability to conduct crucial inspections.

Araghchi’s latest remarks came amid escalating tensions ahead of this week’s renewed negotiations between the US and Iran in Europe.

This week, CNN and Axios reported that Israel is preparing for a potential strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities if talks between Washington and Tehran collapse in the coming weeks.

In a statement on X, Araghchi warned that if the international community fails to take “preventive measures” against Israel, Iran would be compelled to take “special measures in defense of [the country’s] nuclear facilities and materials.”

Threats from the rogue Israeli regime are nothing new. But the recent leak citing US officials as divulging Israeli plans for an unlawful attack on Iran and its nuclear facilities is alarming and warrants immediate and serious condemnation from the UN Security Council and the…

— Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) May 22, 2025

After concluding their fourth round of nuclear talks in Oman last weekend, Araghchi and US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff are set to hold a fifth round of negotiations in Rome on Friday, with Oman’s foreign minister serving as mediator.

So far, diplomatic efforts have stalled over Iran’s demand to maintain its domestic uranium enrichment program — a condition the White House has firmly rejected.

“We have one very, very clear red line, and that is enrichment. We cannot allow even 1 percent of an enrichment capability,” Witkoff said in an interview with ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday.

On Tuesday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rejected US demands to halt uranium enrichment as “excessive and outrageous,” warning that the talks are unlikely to yield results.

Meanwhile, Reuters reported that Tehran has no viable “Plan B” should the current nuclear negotiations fail, according to a senior Iranian official.

While the Iranian diplomat said the country’s strategy would include strengthening ties with allies like Russia and China, neither Beijing nor Moscow can be counted on as fully reliable partners, given Beijing’s trade war with Washington and Russia’s focus on the war in Ukraine.

Ahead of Friday’s talks in Rome, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to uphold any agreement that prevents Iran from enriching uranium and obtaining a nuclear weapon.

“But in any case, Israel maintains the right to defend itself from a regime that is threatening to annihilate it,” Netanyahu said in a press conference.

On Monday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Esmaeil Baghaei, described negotiations with the White House as “difficult,” accusing Washington of not adhering to any “conventional diplomatic norms” and contradictory actions.

“Imposing sanctions while claiming to pursue a diplomatic path with the Islamic Republic of Iran is itself evidence of their lack of seriousness and goodwill,” the Iranian diplomat said in a statement.

“This reality proves that American policymakers maintain a hostile attitude toward the Iranian people, and their claims of commitment to dialogue and diplomacy should not be taken seriously,” Baghaei continued.

As part of the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran — which aims to cut the country’s crude exports to zero and prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon — Washington has been targeting Tehran’s oil industry with mounting sanctions.

In April, Tehran and Washington held their first official nuclear negotiation since the US withdrew from a now-defunct 2015 nuclear deal that had imposed temporary limits on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanction relief.

The post Iran Threatens to Relocate Nuclear Material, Blame US for Potential Israeli Strike Ahead of Rome Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Members of the group Misaskim clean blood off the ground where two Israeli embassy staff were shot dead near the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, May 22, 2025. Photo: Evelyn Hockstein via Reuters Connect.

Rampant antisemitism and anti-Israel activism on university campuses helped lay the groundwork for Wednesday night’s fatal shooting of two Israeli embassy staffers leaving a Jewish event in Washington, DC, according to experts who spoke with The Algemeiner.

Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, 26, a couple about to become engaged, were murdered as they left an event at the Capital Jewish Museum for young professionals and diplomatic staff hosted by the American Jewish Committee (AJC).

Elias Rodriguez, a 30-year-old left-wing and anti-Israel activist from Chicago, was charged on Thursday in US federal court with murdering the Israeli embassy aides. According to witnesses and federal agents, he chanted, “Free, Free Palestine” — a war cry that has been a staple of the pro-Hamas movement on campuses across the US. An affidavit filed by federal authorities in support of the criminal complaint charging Rodriguez revealed that he also said at the scene of the shooting, “I did it for Palestine; I did it for Gaza.”

On Thursday, a Middle East scholar and the executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, Asaf Romirowsky, who is Jewish, told The Algemeiner that Rodriguez’s alleged crimes can be linked to higher education’s normalizing of antisemitism.

“Last night’s heinous acts by Elias Rodriguez once again show how normalized antisemitism has become, being tolerated and institutionalized in our universities and media for decades,” Romirowsky explained. “Words have meaning and consequences and there is a reason why slogans used on campus calling for ‘resistance,’ ‘globalize the intifada,’ and ‘Free Palestine,’ are actionable Islamist terroristic commands synonymous to how the perpetrators of 10/7 [Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel] acted.”

He added, “There is no surprise that within hours after the murders he received praise from Moustafa Bayram, a member of Hezbollah.”

Esteemed Jewish scholar Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, founder and executive director of antisemitism watchdog AMCHA Initiative, noted that in the days leading up to the shooting, pro-Hamas campus groups called on their supporters to “escalate” their conduct.

“They give us no choice,” a campus group which calls itself Columbia University Apartheid Divesthttps://www.algemeiner.com/2025/04/01/meta-boots-anti-zionist-columbia-university-group-instagram/ wrote in a Substack email blast shared on Wednesday morning, some 12 hours before the murders. “We will continue to disrupt the imperialist system that thrives on bloodshed and exploitation … We can disrupt and bring these rotten institutions to their graves.”

CUAD was preceded by other activists whose rhetoric portrayed Israel and the Jews who live there as evil.

On Saturday, a graduating George Washington University senior, Cecilia Culver, accused Israel of targeting Palestinians “simply for [their] remaining in the country of their ancestors” and said that GW students are passive contributors to the “imperialist system.” An economics and statistics major, Culver went on to charge that the university has “blood on its hands.”

Similar remarks were uttered during New York University’s commencement ceremony for the Gallatin School of Individualized Study.

“I want to say that the genocide currently occurring is supported politically and militarily by the United States, is paid for by our tax dollars, and has been live streamed to our phones for the past 18 months,” said Logan Rozos, who presented administrators with a false draft of his speech, leaving them unaware of his intention to promote notions frequently trafficked by neo-Nazis and jihadist terror groups. “I want to say that I condemn this genocide and complicity in this genocide.”

The connection between the incidents is undeniable, Rossman-Benjamin told The Algemeiner.

“The missing link between the commencement speeches and the shooter’s action is the CUAD bulletin, and its call to ‘escalate,’ which the commencement speakers and shooter each did in their own way,” she said. “What we also understand is that the shooter apparently claimed, ‘The action [killing] would have been morally justified taken 11 years ago.’” Around 11 years ago is when he would be 19 years old, around the time he was at UIC [the University of Illinois Chicago]. It could be where he became radicalized.”

Domestic terrorism may be the end game for the over 150 pro-Hamas groups operating on colleges campuses and elsewhere across the US to foster anti-Israel demonstrations, according to a September 2024 report published by the Capital Research Center (CRC) think tank.

“The movement contains militant elements pushing it toward a wider, more severe campaign focused on property destruction and violence properly described as domestic terrorism,” researcher Ryan Mauro wrote in the report, titled “Marching Toward Violence: The Domestic Anti-Israeli Protest Movement.” “It demands the ‘dismantlement’ of America’s ‘colonialist,’ ‘imperialist,’ or ‘capitalist,’ system, often calling for the US to be abolished as a country.”

He continued, “These revolutionary goals are held by the two different factions of the anti-Israel extremist groups. The first faction combines Islamists, communists/Marxists, and anarchists. The second faction consists of groups with white supremacist/nationalist ideologies. They share Jew-hatred, anti-Americanism, and the goal of sparking a revolutionary uprising.”

The group most responsible for the anti-Israel protest movement is Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), according to the report.

Drawing on statements issued and actions taken by SJP and their collaborators, Mauro made the case that toolkits published by SJP herald Hamas for perpetrating mass casualties of civilians; SJP has endorsed Iran’s attacks on Israel as well as its stated intention to overturn the US-led world order; and other groups under its umbrella have called on followers to “Bring the Intifada Home.” Such activities, the report explained, accelerated after Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, which pro-Hamas groups perceived as an inflection point in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and an opportunity. By flooding the internet and college campuses with agitprop and staging activities — protests or vandalisms — they hoped to manufacture a critical mass of youth support for their ideas, thus creating an army of revolutionaries willing to adopt Hamas’s aims as their own.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post ‘Globalize the Intifada’: Scholars Link DC Murder of Israeli Embassy Aides to Campus Antisemitism, Incitement first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Elias Rodriguez, 30, from Chicago, taken into custody by police for allegedly shooting two Israeli Embassy staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, on May 21, 2025. Photo: Screenshot

The suspect who allegedly murdered two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC, on Wednesday night expressed admiration for a man who set himself on fire outside the embassy last year to protest the war in Gaza, according to newly released court documents.

Elias Rodriguez, a 30-year-old left-wing and anti-Israel activist from Chicago, was charged on Thursday in US federal court with two counts of first-degree murder. He is accused of fatally shooting Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, 26, a young couple about to become engaged to be married, as they left an event at the Capital Jewish Museum for young professionals and diplomatic staff hosted by the American Jewish Committee (AJC).

In addition to murder, Rodriguez was charged in a criminal complaint with murder of foreign officials, causing death with a firearm, and discharging a firearm in a crime of violence.

An affidavit filed by US federal authorities in support of the criminal complaint charging Rodriguez revealed that he said at the scene of the shooting, “I did it for Palestine; I did it for Gaza.” He also chanted “Free Palestine, Free Palestine” after being taken into custody, according to video of the incident.

The court document also explained that Rodriguez told law enforcement that he idolized Aaron Bushnell, a 25-year-old serviceman of the US Air Force who died after setting himself on fire outside the front gate of the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC, in February 2024. Bushnell was protesting Israel’s military campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza. He said in a video of the incident that he would “no longer be complicit in genocide” and chanted “Free Palestine” while pouring liquid over himself and igniting it.

“During an interview with MPD [Metropolitan Police Department] detectives, after having been advised of his Miranda rights and after waiving them, Rodriguez expressed admiration for the actions of an individual who self-immolated in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC, on Feb. 25, 2024, as a form of protest intended to draw attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” the affidavit stated. “Rodriguez described this person’s actions as courageous and labeled him a ‘martyr.’”

As Jewish communities worldwide deal with the shock of Wednesday night’s shooting, details have emerged about Rodriguez showing he has maintained ties to extremist left-wing groups and held virulent anti-Israel views.

Rodriguez was involved with the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), a far-left organization that has previously called for the “extermination” of all Zionists, according to a review of his history and information obtained by The Algemeiner.

The Chicago chapter of PSL has routinely called for violence and “armed resistance” against Israel. The organization declares that Israel is an “apartheid state” and a result of “settler-colonialism,” while venerating Hamas as a legitimate “resistance.” PSL has also expressed open support for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an internationally designated terrorist group, and has hosted reading sessions of works penned by PFLP founder Ghassan Kanafani.

PSL holds large rallies in which attendees openly endorse terrorism against the Jewish state and call for its elimination. Earlier this month, PSL joined a coalition of other far-left organizations to hold a protest outside of the Israeli consulate in Chicago.

In the immediate aftermath of the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, PSL organized an event titled “Gaza Fights for Freedom.” Additionally, PSL Chicago partnered with several prominent anti-Israel organizations, such as the ANSWER Coalition, CODEPINK, Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA), and the Palestine Feminist Collective.

In the aftermath of Wednesday night’s shooting, PSL has attempted to distance itself from Rodriguez, claiming that the alleged murderer is only associated with the group in a limited capacity and does not currently hold a membership. However, in an April 2025 picture posted to Facebook, a person resembling Rodriguez participated in a “Socialist Reconstruction Study Group” workshop hosted by PSL.

“Through collective study, we mapped the contradictions of US foreign policy and discussed tactics to organize within the imperial core,” the group said of the gathering. “By understanding imperialism’s motivations, we explored the revolutionary possibilities that emerge in its wake — and how to build that future now, through concrete struggle.”

Rodriguez is also suspected to have maintained an anonymous X/Twitter account, in which he called for violence against Israel. The account, named “kyodo.leather,” was started just two weeks after the Oct. 7 slaughters in Israel. It endorsed a video calling to “bomb Tel Aviv” and praised the conduct of the Hamas terrorist group. The social media account also allegedly shared videos glorifying Hasan Nasrallah, the now-deceased leader of Hezbollah, another Islamist terrorist organization.

Early Thursday, investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein published a manifesto allegedly belonging to Rodriguez. In the 900-word document, Rodriguez seemingly confirms that the ongoing Israel-Hamas war motivated him to act.

“A word about the morality of armed demonstration. Those of us against the genocide take satisfaction in arguing that the perpetrators and abettors have forfeited their humanity,” Rodriguez allegedly wrote. “I sympathize with this viewpoint and understand its value in soothing the psyche which cannot bear to accept the atrocities it witnesses, even mediated through the screen. But inhumanity has long since shown itself to be shockingly common, mundane, prosaically human. A perpetrator may then be a loving parent, a filial child, a generous and charitable friend, an amiable stranger, capable of moral strength at times when it suits him and sometimes even when it does not, and yet be a monster all the same. Humanity doesn’t exempt one from accountability.”

The post Accused DC Shooter Elias Rodriguez Idolized Man Who Set Himself on Fire Outside Israeli Embassy: Court Documents first appeared on Algemeiner.com.