In wake of DC shooting, false flag conspiracies spread

[Behind the Aegis]

It would seem likely, at first glance, that Elias Rodriguez, the 30-year-old man from Chicago who allegedly shot two people outside the Capital Jewish Museum in D.C., targeted the American Jewish Committee event taking place in the museum as retribution for Israel’s actions in Gaza. When arrested, the man, Elias Rodriguez, shouted “Free, free Palestine,” and a manifesto attributed to him argues for “armed action” to address “atrocities committed by Israelis against Palestine.”

Online, however, doubt percolated almost immediately. Specifically, theories began to amass that the shooting was a false flag operation.

The argument goes roughly like this: Israel has lost its moral standing thanks to its bombardment of Gaza. Israel needed to divert attention from starving Palestinians, and to paint pro-Palestinian activism as an antisemitic, terrorist movement. Killing two Israeli Embassy aides outside a Jewish event establishes antisemitism as a clear, tangible threat, and the killer shouting “Free Palestine” while doing so ties it clearly to the pro-Palestinian movement. It’s too clean and obvious to be real, say the conspiracists.

Given the manifesto and Rodriguez’s statements on the scene, this seems like a stretch. But false flag operations — acts done with the goal of pinning responsibility on a different group — are not always the stuff of conspiracy theories.

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