3 hours ago
1
The suspected terrorist charged with gunning down two Israeli embassy workers in Washington Wednesday is associated with radical socialist groups funded by the far-left Chinese sympathizer, millionaire Neville Singham and his activist wife Jodie Evans.
Elias Rodriguez, 31, who allegedly confessed to killing the couple outside the Capital Jewish Museum and chanted “free, free Palestine!” was part of that network through his association with the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), a Communist political organization that has fielded presidential candidates since 2008.
In 2018, Rodriguez also raised $240 in a GoFundMe campaign to join the March to Fight Poverty in Washington DC and took part in demonstrations and protests around Chicago as a member of the ANSWER coalition around 2017 and 2018, another radical socialist group, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
Both the PSL and ANSWER Coalition are connected to People’s Forum – a Manhattan-based non-profit which has ties to the Chinese Communist Party – through funding from Singham, 71.
All three groups have been involved in anti-Israel protests, with the People’s Forum having a cadre of operatives embedded at Columbia University — an epicenter of protest — according to previous reports.
The People’s Forum received more than $20 million in grants from Singham, much of it filtered through the Goldman Sachs Philanthropy Fund, a fiscal sponsor, as The Post has previously reported.
Another group, the Bronx Antiwar Coalition is also connected to groups in Singham’s orbit. The Bronx group applauded the murders of the Israeli diplomats on X Thursday.
“What Elias Rodriguez did is the highest expression of anti-Zionism,” a tweet from the group proclaimed.
The Bronx Anti-War Coalition was founded by Dee Knight, a radical socialist and pro-China activist, who has worked with People’s Forum, according to reports.
Knight’s latest book, “Befriending China: People to People Peacemaking,” garnered advance praise from Evans, 70, who lobbies for closer relations with China.
“He reveals in so many ways that China is not our enemy, but has an abundance to share with us,” wrote Evans, who has written her own book about embracing China in conjunction with Tricontental Insitute for Social Research, a Marxist think tank center funded by her husband and the Communist Party of China (CCP), according to the Network Contagion Research Institute.
The research center employs Singham’s son, Nate Singham, as a researcher, according to a report from the National Contagion Research Institute, a New Jersey-based think tank.
“The People’s Forum… and ANSWER Coalition serve as the conduit through which CCP-affiliated entities have effectively co-opted pro-Palestinian activism in the US, advancing a broader anti-American, anti-democratic, and anti-capitalist agenda,” according to NCRI’s 2024 report, “Contagious Disruption: How CCP Influence and Radical Ideologies Threaten Critical Infrastructure and Campuses Across the United States.”
Donations to the radical groups are filtered through Progress Unity Fund, a radical-left fiscal sponsor, according to public records.
Singham, who is now believed to be based in Shanghai, is married to activist Jodi Evans, founder of Code Pink, a women’s anti-war group which has also taken a pro-China stance in recent years.
Born in Chicago, Singham is former chair of ThoughtWorks, an IT consulting company which he sold for a reported $785 million in 2017. He is a socialist and Maoist, who was a former member of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, a Maoist group, according to sources.
He did not respond to The Post’s request for comment, but previously told the New York Times: “I categorically deny and repudiate any suggestion that I am a member of, work for, take orders from, or follow instructions of any political party or government or their representatives.
“I am solely guided by my beliefs, which are my long-held personal views.”
On the GoFundMe page for the March to Fight Poverty, Rodriguez had said he was joining to protest US involvement in foreign wars after his father, a National Guardsman, was sent to Iraq when Rodriguez was 11 years old.
When his father returned, Rodriguez was angry he had brought back a small Iraqi flag he ripped off a dead Iraqi’s uniform.
“I don’t want to see another generation of Americans coming home from genocidal imperialist wars with trophies,” he wrote at the time.
Meanwhile, the PSL tried to distance themselves from Rodriguez Thursday, saying his “brief association” with a branch had ended in 2017.
“We reject any attempt to associate the PSL with the DC shooting. Elias Rodriguez is not a member of the PSL,” the group told The Post Thursday.
“We know of no contact with him in over 7 years. We have nothing to do with this shooting and do not support it.”
Claudia de la Cruz, a Bronx-born socialist activist, is listed as the first president of People’s Forum in 2017 and ran for president of the USA on the Party for Socialism and Liberation’s ticket in 2024.
De La Cruz, who raised nearly $400,000 during her presidential run, stepped down from the top position at the non-profit in 2023, according to federal filings.
Ben Becker, a founding member of the party, is listed as a board member of Breakthrough Media, a non-profit affiliated with People’s Forum which also shares its Midtown address, according to public records.
De La Cruz is also listed as a board member of the media group on its federal filings for 2023.
English (US)