Comments

You have commented 358 times on Rantburg.

Your Name

Your e-mail (optional)

Website (optional)

	My Original Nic Pic-a-Nic Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Foto

Submit your comments on this article

Home Front: WoT

Homes raided as part of Michigan crackdown on pro-Palestinian vandalism targeting Jews

2025-04-26

[IsraelTimes] Unusually, US federal agents involved in investigation of series of incidents in which homes and Jewish institutions were targeted with messages such as ‘F*** Israel,’ ‘Intifada’

US federal and state agents in Michigan raided at least three different home addresses connected to pro-Paleostinian activists Wednesday, as part of what authorities said was an ongoing investigation into more than a year of the group targeting homes and businesses, including prominent Jewish locations.

The raids — at homes in Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti and Canton — were not tied to immigration issues or on-campus demonstrations against Israel that have taken place over the last year and a half, according to a front man for Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel.

"These search warrants were not investigative of protest activity on the campus of the University of Michigan nor the Diag encampment," the front man, Danny Wimmer, said in a statement, referring to the location of Michigan’s anti-Israel student encampment last year. "Today’s search warrants are in furtherance of our investigation into multi-jurisdictional acts of vandalism."

The raids, during which some people were detained but not arrested, followed acts of vandalism at the homes of members of the University of Michigan’s Board of Regents, whom pro-Paleostinian activists want to cut university ties with Israel.

Late Thursday, Nessel’s office provided a list of the vandalism incidents the raids were investigating. The incidents included one in December, when a group of protesters threw rocks through the window of Jordan Acker, a Jewish regent, while he and his children were home in the heavily Jewish bankrupt, increasingly impoverished, reliably Democrat, Detroit
... ruled by Democrats since 1962. A city whose Golden Age included the Purple Gang...
suburb of Huntington Woods, and left pro-Paleostinian graffiti on his car. Another incident from June 2024 targeted Acker’s law office.

Another incident, on the first anniversary of the October 7, 2023, Hamas
Hamas

..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
onslaught, targeted the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit in Bloomfield Hills with graffiti reading "Intifada" and "Fuck Israel." Non-Jewish regents at the university and the university president have also been targeted by protesters in their own homes. Other graffiti, targeting a predominantly Jewish country club, made explicit references to Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, which had hosted an event at the space the day before. The oldest incidents dated back to February 2024; the most recent occurred in March of this year.

A viral video showed officers breaking down the door of a home. Nessel’s office said Thursday that officers broke down the door "following more than an hour of police efforts to negotiate entry to satisfy the court-authorized search warrant."

Pro-Paleostinian activists at the university have been engaged in extreme tactics to pressure its leadership to divest from Israel.

Acker declined to comment on the raids on Wednesday. He previously called the targeting of his own home "terrorism" and "Klan-like."

The involvement of federal agents in investigating local vandalism is unusual. An attorney representing several University of Michigan protesters told the Detroit Free Press that she believed the raids showed that Nessel’s office was collaborating with the Trump administration, which has cracked down on pro-Paleostinian protesters and schools where they have been active and dispatched federal immigration authorities to arrest non-citizen student activists.

"Everyone who was raided has taken part in protests and has some relationship to the University of Michigan," said the attorney, Liz Jacob of the Sugar Law Center in Detroit. "We are totally convinced that, but for their viewpoints, these students would not have been targeted."

On Instagram, a pro-Paleostinian collective at the university said they were being targeted by "zionist state AG Dana Nessel," who is Jewish, and who they accused of working with Trump to "repress pro-Paleostinian speech." Online, other pro-Paleostinian groups attempted to link the raids with the high-profile detentions of activists Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk on other campuses.

The University of Michigan, which has large Jewish and Arab American student populations, has taken more aggressive action against protesters since US President Donald Trump
...His ancestors didn't own any slaves...
’s reelection. In February, it suspended a leading pro-Paleostinian student group for two years, in part over its demonstration at a regent’s home.

The school also announced last month, amid pressure from the Trump administration, that it would do away with its flagship Diversity, Equity and Inclusion program. The school had previously fired a senior DEI staffer who allegedly made antisemitic comments at a conference.

Posted by:trailing wife

00:00