Dearborn attorney Amir Makled will proceed to the November general election, replacing Jordan Acker
Jose Juarez/AP
Amir Makled, right center, a candidate for the University of Michigan Board of Regents, walks with his wife, Nassrine Gomah Makled, after winning the party's nomination during the Michigan Democratic Party State Endorsement Convention, Sunday, April 19, 2026, in Detroit.
Add JewishInsider on GoogleMichigan Democrats on Sunday nominated insurgent candidate Amir Makled, an anti-Israel attorney, for the University of Michigan Board of Regents over incumbent Jordan Acker, a Jewish regent who had been targeted by far-left activists over his support for Israel.
Acker was actively campaigning for reelection alongside Paul Brown, both of whom were first elected in 2018. But only Acker was targeted by Makled’s backers, even though both Acker and Brown had supported disciplining anti-Israel student activists and opposing efforts to divest from Israel. Brown was also nominated by the Democratic Party on Sunday, and he and Makled will now advance to the November general election.
The positions are statewide elected offices, and regents are tasked with governing Michigan’s flagship public university. Two of the board’s eight seats are up for election this November.
Makled has argued in his campaign that the university should divest from Israel. A trial attorney based in Dearborn, Makled previously represented a University of Michigan student who was arrested during the 2024 anti-Israel encampment.
He faced criticism earlier this month after the Detroit News documented Makled’s history of sharing pro-Hezbollah and antisemitic tweets, which he has since deleted but not addressed. Those revelations prompted SEIU, the labor union, to pull their endorsement of Makled.
In 2024, Acker’s home was targeted by anti-Israel activists on multiple occasions in incidents that university leadership and Michigan politicians described as antisemitic.
Plus, feds are on Kent's case
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
President Donald Trump speaks on stage at Verst Logistics on March 11, 2026 in Hebron, Kentucky.
👋 Good Thursday morning!
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on yesterday’s worldwide threats hearing with senior intelligence officials, and look at an effort to target Jordan Acker, a Jewish member of the University of Michigan Board of Regents who is up for reelection this year. We interview Katy Padilla Stout, a Democrat in Texas hoping that the GOP’s nomination of a far-right influencer with a history of antisemitic comments will help her flip a red congressional seat, and look at how far-left activists in Colorado are mobilizing against Sen. John Hickenlooper and Rep. Diana DeGette. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Sharon Nazarian, Adam Kaplan and Dan Shapiro.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with assists from Danielle Cohen-Kanik and Marc Rod. Have a tip? Email us here.
What We’re Watching
- The House Intelligence Committee is holding its rescheduled hearing on worldwide threats a day after a similar hearing in the Senate. More below.
- The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is expected to mark up — and potentially vote on — Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s (R-OK) nomination to head theDepartment of Homeland Security. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), the committee’s chair, has threatened to cancel the vote over personal clashes with Mullin, who has referred to Paul as a “freaking snake” — which he refused to apologize for at yesterday’s hearing. Paul has indicated that he will not back Mullin’s confirmation, but Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), who also sits on the committee, said he’ll vote for Mullin, potentially getting the Oklahoma senator the requisite number of votes to move out of committee. More below on yesterday’s confirmation hearing.
- Antisemitic conspiracy theorist Candace Owens is slated to interview Joe Kent, who stepped down earlier this week as the head of the National Counterterrorism Center, at the Catholic Prayer for America gala in Washington. Last night, Kent gave his first interview since resigning to Tucker Carlson. More below.
- At least four people in Israel and the West Bank — including a foreign worker in Moshav Adanim and three Palestinian women in the village of Beit Awwa — were killed in overnight strikes from Iran.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S LAHAV HARKOV
Current and former Israeli and U.S. officials suggested that an Israeli strike on an Iranian gas field on Wednesday that prompted the Islamic Republic to strike Qatar was coordinated with the White House — despite President Donald Trump’s claim that the U.S. “knew nothing about this particular attack.”
Trump made the remarks in a Truth Social post, in which he threatened that the U.S. would bomb the South Pars gas field, the Iranian portion of the larger field shared with Qatar, if Iran does not stop attacking Qatar.
“The United States knew nothing about this particular attack, and the country of Qatar was in no way, shape or form involved with it, nor did it have any idea that it was going to happen. Unfortunately, Iran did not know this … and unjustifiably and unfairly attacked a portion of Qatar’s [liquid natural gas] facility,” the president wrote.
If “Iran unwisely decides to attack a very innocent, in this case, Qatar,” he added, the U.S., “with or without the help or consent of Israel, will massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field at an amount of strength and power that Iran has never seen or witnessed before.”
An Israeli official told Kan News, Israel’s public broadcaster, that the attack on the South Pars gas field was coordinated with the U.S.
Dan Shapiro, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel and Pentagon official in the Biden administration, wrote on X, “Trump can post whatever he likes. But there is zero, I mean zero, chance the IDF would conduct a strike in that location without giving CENTCOM full visibility.”
Gilad Erdan, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington and a former member of Israel’s Security Cabinet, told Jewish Insider that it was highly likely the U.S. knew about the strike, saying that Trump did not criticize Israel in his post, and “in the same breath” as saying the U.S. was unaware, “[Trump] himself threatened to erase the [gas] field.”
INTEL ASSESSMENT
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said on Wednesday that the U.S. and Israeli operations against Iran have largely destroyed Tehran’s “power projection capabilities” in the region, but that the regime remains standing, if weakened, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Top lines: “The IC assesses the regime in Iran appears to be intact but largely degraded due to attacks on its leadership and military capabilities,” Gabbard said at a hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee on worldwide threats. “Its conventional military power projection capabilities have largely been destroyed, leaving limited options. Iran’s strategic position has been significantly degraded.” The hearing also featured extensive back-and-forth over the war in Iran, the threats the U.S. faces from Iran and the intelligence community’s assessment of Iran’s activities and capabilities.
Doubling down: The Senate voted largely along party lines on Wednesday night to reject a procedural motion on an effort aiming to bring the U.S. operations in Iran to an immediate halt for the second time this month, JI’s Marc Rod reports.
HEARING SPOTLIGHT
In his nomination hearing to be secretary of homeland security, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) said he will aim to “streamline the process” for grants, including the Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP) aimed at helping harden religious institutions, amid heightened antisemitism and increased threats during the ongoing war in Iran, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea and Marc Rod report.
‘Laser focused’: When pressed by senators on the need to unlock NSGP funding in the wake of the violent attack at Temple Israel in suburban Detroit last week, Mullin agreed that the process should be streamlined and said he would aim to “cut out the redundancies” and “amount of paperwork.” Mullin said that while he may have political differences with some of the lawmakers on the committee, this issue “isn’t one” of them and that he would be “laser focused and get this resolved.”
Bonus: In The Hill, Nathan Diament, the executive director of the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center, calls on Congress to press Mullin to end the ongoing standoff over Department of Homeland Security funding, which includes NSGP funding, arguing that the Oklahoma senator’s “nomination is an opportunity for the administration to start anew, and focus on keeping vulnerable communities safe instead of political theatrics.”
KENT’S CLAIMS
Joe Kent, who resigned earlier this week from his role as director of the National Counterterrorism Center over his opposition to the war in Iran, offered a litany of baseless accusations about Israel while defending the Iranian regime in an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s program on Wednesday, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.
What he said: Kent doubled down in the interview on an allegation made in his resignation statement that Israel coerced the U.S. into the war for its own benefit. As evidence, Kent and Carlson — a friend of Kent’s and a leading critic of the Trump administration’s approach to Iran in the conservative movement — pointed to Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying earlier this month that the “imminent threat” that prompted the U.S. to take action was the foreknowledge that Israel was going to strike, likely resulting in retaliation against American targets by the Iranian regime. “So, the imminent threat that the secretary of state is describing is not from Iran, it’s from Israel” Carlson mused. “Exactly,” Kent replied.
Newfound allies: Michael Blake, who is mounting a primary challenge to Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), praised Kent in an X post on Wednesday, saying, “An absolutely breathtaking, courageous and bold resignation letter stating that Iran posed NO IMMINENT THREAT to us and Trump made this decision due to the Israeli government and its American Lobby,” JI’s Marc Rod reports.
QUARREL ON THE QUAD
Since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel in 2023, University of Michigan Regent Jordan Acker has become the target of the university’s anti-Israel activists, facing harassment and vandalism that Michigan leaders have called plainly antisemitic. Now Acker is up for reelection, along with regent Paul Brown. Both of them are Democrats who were elected to the board in 2018, and they each oppose divestment of university funds from Israeli companies. But the university’s anti-Israel activists are targeting only Acker, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
Under fire: The activists are advocating for voters to unseat Acker and to vote instead for Amir Makled, a candidate who has aligned himself with anti-Israel activists and advocated for the university to divest from Israel. Only two of the three candidates will proceed to the general election, where they’ll go up against two Republicans. A flyer that was distributed at a recent Washtenaw County Democrats meeting in support of Makled called out only Acker for his support of Israel. “UM Regent Jordan Acker is up for re-election this year, and as one of the most vocally zionist regents who has personally advocated for the repression of pro Palestine voices at the university, we are mobilizing to unseat him from his position on the Board of Regents,” read the flyer, which featured a photo of Acker’s face crossed out with a red X.
EYE ON THE PRIZE
Democrat Katy Padilla Stout, an attorney and former teacher in Texas’ 23rd Congressional District, sees an opportunity to flip the red seat that President Donald Trump won by 15 points in the last presidential election. Her path opened up with the GOP’s nomination of Brandon Herrera, a hard-right influencer who has repeatedly come under fire for social media videos in which he used imagery from and made light of the Nazi regime and the Holocaust, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. Herrera won the nomination following Rep. Tony Gonzales’ (R-TX) decision not to seek reelection amid scandal.
An opening: Padilla Stout told JI this week that she felt a “deep sense of disgust” with Herrera’s past videos. She dismissed his claims that the incidents were only intended in jest, calling the pattern “really concerning,” particularly when coupled with Herrera’s longtime membership in a neo-Confederate group. “Everybody who watched it understood that he was normalizing that and that it wasn’t funny, and it wasn’t about humor,” she said. “It was about doing something that was harmful to our society and desensitizing people.” A spokesperson for Herrera said the accusations against the GOP candidate were “manufactured through misleading video edits,” adding that Herrera “does not have an antisemitic bone in his body.”
ROCKY MOUNT REVOLT
Far-left challengers to Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) and Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) are picking up support in internal party proceedings in what some progressives are touting as a sign of the incumbents’ vulnerabilities, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Lay of the land: In the Senate race, Hickenlooper, facing state Sen. Julie Gonzales, a former member of the Democratic Socialists of America who has centered her campaign around criticism of Israel, dropped out of the Democratic caucus nominating process, choosing to qualify for the June primary through petition signatures instead. In DeGette’s district, far-left candidate Melat Kiros won nearly two-thirds of the Democratic Party delegates’ votes in Denver last weekend, nearly doubling DeGette’s support, and calling DeGette’s spot on the ballot into question. But local experts say those developments shouldn’t necessarily be read as signs that the two establishment Democrats are on their way out, noting that the state’s Democratic Party processes tend to favor more progressive candidates.
Worthy Reads
Blind Spots on the War: The Atlantic’s Eliot Cohen posits that advocates for and opponents of the war in Iran are failing on different counts — those who support the war have not shored up enough support for it, while those who oppose military action do not recognize the threat posed by the endurance of the Iranian regime. “When a war begins, our emotions often overtake our ability to analyze and judge. That is a problem not only for those who wage war, engaging either directly as combatants or indirectly as senior leaders, but for the rest of us. That partial eclipse of reason is on full display in the current Iran war, exacerbated by previously held beliefs about the leaders of the United States and Israel on the one hand, and about the Iranian regime on the other.” [TheAtlantic]
What the UAE Means: In The Wall Street Journal, Badr Jafar, the United Arab Emirates’ special envoy for business and philanthropy, argues that Iran’s targeting of the UAE, which has been the primary target of Tehran’s missile launches, underscores its importance as a hub for global business. “What Iran is attacking is an idea: that an open economy can flourish in one of the world’s most contested regions. That idea matters — and not only to the UAE. … The question for the global business community is whether the fundamental case for working and investing in this country has changed. It hasn’t. That case rests not on the absence of risk but on a demonstrated history of resilience, a uniquely diversified economic base, and an unmatched set of physical and financial assets that serve not only the Gulf but Asia, Africa and Europe alike.” [WSJ]
Strait Talk Express: In The New York Times, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Mark Montgomery suggests that the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and wrangling control of the waterway from Tehran are vital to the U.S.’ long-term strategic interests in the region and beyond. “The president should remember that China is watching. If pressure in the oil markets is enough to break America’s resolve and lead Mr. Trump to pull out of the war, Chinese leaders are that much more likely to conclude that our commitments to defend Taiwan are nothing but bluster. If the United States can hold firm for the next few weeks, it can fully degrade Iran’s war-making apparatus. This would usher in a multiyear interval of calm of the kind that neither sanctions nor diplomacy has been able to produce in over four decades.”[NYTimes]
Word on the Street
The FBI is investigating allegations that former National Counterterrorism Center head Joe Kent shared classified information; the monthslong investigation was already underway at the time of Kent’s resignation earlier this week…
The IRS and FBI are partnering on an effort to investigate links between nonprofit groups and domestic terrorism, following a December directive from the Justice Department instructing federal agencies to look into alleged “tax crimes” of extremist groups…
Adam Kaplan, the deputy inspector general of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said that his office will investigate U.N. staff for ties to Hamas, noting that previous vetting requirements by the aid agency exempted employees of the international body, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports…
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) has reportedly angered the White House over her recent trip to the Middle East and efforts to conduct her own rescue missions of Americans stranded in the region, including her direct outreach to Saudi officials that bypassed the State Department…
Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) told Politico this week that he “wouldn’t take AIPAC money,” adding that his perspective had changed since he last accepted donations from pro-Israel groups in 2024…
Argentina assumed the presidency of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance for a one-year term…
Wisconsin’s state Senate passed legislation adopting IHRA’s working definition of antisemitism; the bill will now go to Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, for his signature…
Sharon Nazarian and her family’s philanthropic organization, the Younes & Soroya Nazarian Family Foundation, announced a new partnership with Hebrew Union College for a new initiative at University of Southern California’s Louchheim School for Judaic Studies focused on educating students about extremism, rising hate and antisemitism, JI’s Haley Cohen reports for eJewishPhilanthropy…
Authorities in the U.K. charged two people — an Iranian man and a British-Iranian dual citizen — with surveilling Jewish sites in London last summer on behalf of Iran…
Belgian lawmakers said the government would begin deploying military troops to protect Jewish sites in the country following an explosion last week at a synagogue in Liège…
The antisemitism commissioner in the German state of Brandenburg resigned from the far-left Die Linke party, of which he was a member for more than a decade, following the passing of a resolution condemning Zionism…
The New York Times looks at the ascendance of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, which is gaining popularity in the country ahead of federal elections this fall…
The Washington Post reports on growing anger at Hezbollah in Lebanon as Israel escalates its targeting of the terror group, amid Beirut’s failure to disarm it in accordance with the November 2024 ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon…
The Wall Street Journal spotlights the U.S.’ use of ground-based missiles that are being deployed for the first time…
NPR looks at the growing use of cheaply made drones in modern warfare and the challenges they pose to the U.S. and American allies that have not developed a robust enough defense system to fully fend off drone attacks…
Elbit Systems announced plans to develop laser weapons to be mounted onto fighter jets and military helicopters, but did not provide a timeline for the development…
Pic of the Day
Representatives from the J7 Jewish Communities met on Wednesday at the Anti-Defamation League’s headquarters in New York City with U.N. permanent representatives. Shown facing forward, from right, are French Amb. Jérôme Bonnafont, U.S. Amb. Jeff Bartos, Canadian Deputy Permanent Representative Michael Gort, Australian Amb. James Larsen and Argentine Amb. Jose Luis Fernandez Valoni.
Birthdays
Online producer, writer and director, who together with his brother Rafi, are best known for their React video series, Benny Fine (right) turns 45…
Chairman of the board of Americans for Democracy in the Middle-East, he is the rabbi of Temple Israel of the Poconos, in Stroudsburg, Pa., Daniel M. Zucker turns 77… Israeli politician, the daughter of slain Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Dalia Rabin-Pelossof turns 76… Former executive editor of The New York Times, the first woman to ever hold that post, Jill Abramson turns 72… NYC-based real estate investor, he is one of three co-founders of the Tribeca Film Festival, Craig Hatkoff turns 72… Musician, composer, singer and songwriter, he was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and now lives in Jerusalem, Yehuda Julio Glantz turns 68… Actor, stand-up comedian and author, Fred Stoller turns 68… EVP of merchandising at American Signature Furniture, a Schottenstein company, Steven D. Rabe turns 66… Writer, critic and author, he writes often about klezmer, Jewish music and Bob Dylan, Seth Rogovoy… Retired partner at Latham & Watkins, Jonathan R. Rod turns 66… Neurologist in Naples, Fla., Brian D. Wolff, MD… Member of the New York state Assembly, Stacey Pheffer Amato turns 60… Former collegiate and professional tennis player, now first vice chair of Camp Ramah Darom, Stacey Schefflin Slomka turns 58… Dean of students at Reichman University (formerly known as IDC Herzliya), she was previously a member of the Knesset for the Yesh Atid party, Adi Koll turns 50… Brazilian-born entrepreneur and angel investor, he is one of the co-founders of Facebook, Eduardo Luiz Saverin turns 44… Former director of North American staff at Taglit-Birthright Israel, Aaron Bock… Member of the New York City Council, Lincoln P. Restler turns 42… Founder of two lines of jewelry, the Brave Collection in 2012, and Zahava (Golden, in Hebrew) in 2018, Jessica Hendricks Yee… Line producer at NBCUniversal in NYC, Emma Gottlieb… Discus thrower, he represented the USA at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo and the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, Samuel Harrison Mattis turns 32…
Anti-Israel activists are singling out regent Jordan Acker, hoping to unseat him with attorney Amir Makled who represented a member of the school’s encampment
JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images
Anti-Israel demonstrators set up a mock trial against the University of Michigan's Board of Regents on the university's campus in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on April 21, 2025.
When Jordan Acker ran for the University of Michigan Board of Regents in 2018 — a statewide elected office — he presented himself as a young alumnus eager to bring a fresh energy to the governing board of Michigan’s flagship public university.
But since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel in 2023, Acker has become the target of the university’s anti-Israel activists, facing harassment and vandalism that Michigan leaders have called plainly antisemitic.
Acker, who is Jewish, has been a staunch opponent of efforts to divest university funds from Israel, along with other members of the Board of Regents, which has reiterated that it will not divest from Israeli companies. In November, the president of Michigan’s student government vetoed a divestment resolution.
In May 2024, a stranger wearing a keffiyeh came to Acker’s house in the middle of the night and placed papers on the door, described as a list of demands from the “UMich Gaza Solidarity Encampment.” In December of that year, his front windows were smashed and his wife’s car was vandalized with pro-Hamas graffiti. The university called it “a clear act of antisemitic intimidation.”
Now Acker is up for reelection, along with regent Paul Brown. Both of them are Democrats who were elected to the board in 2018, and they each oppose divestment.
But the university’s anti-Israel activists are targeting only Acker. This time, they are advocating for voters to unseat him and to vote instead for Amir Makled, a candidate who has aligned himself with anti-Israel activists and advocated for the university to divest from Israel. Only two of the three candidates will proceed to the general election, where they’ll go up against two Republicans.
A flyer that was distributed at a recent Washtenaw County Democrats meeting in support of Makled called out only Acker for his support of Israel. (Brown told Jewish Insider that he and Acker are running on a ticket, and they are doing events together as well as joint fundraising.)
“UM Regent Jordan Acker is up for re-election this year, and as one of the most vocally zionist regents who has personally advocated for the repression of pro Palestine voices at the university, we are mobilizing to unseat him from his position on the Board of Regents,” read the flyer, which featured a photo of Acker’s face crossed out with a red X. “Together we can replace him with pro-Palestine regental candidate Amir Makled who helped successfully defend the UM Encampment 11 against charges from MI attorney general Dana Nessel.”
The flyer encouraged Michigan students to sign up to attend the Michigan Democratic Party convention in Detroit on April 19, where delegates will nominate the two candidates for Board of Regents.
Nearly two decades ago, Makled helped pass a measure calling on the University of Michigan’s Dearborn campus to divest from Israel when he was a student there in the late 2000s. It was one of the first universities in the nation to vote in support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
Makled, a Dearborn trial lawyer who represented an anti-Israel protester who was arrested during the 2024 University of Michigan encampments, is basing his pitch to voters in part on the idea that the state’s flagship public university should divest from Israel. Makled has been endorsed by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), one of the most vocal critics of Israel in Congress.
“Investment in entities that are not ethical and don’t represent the values of this institution aren’t in the best interest of the university,” Makled recently told The Michigan Daily, the campus newspaper. “[Investment] should be based off ethical dollars and ethical approaches to investment. And so we shouldn’t be profiting from entities that are supporting a genocide.”
And while Acker and Brown might prefer that the race not be used to relitigate the messy 2023-2024 academic year that followed the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks — other issues like tuition affordability and the university’s response to President Donald Trump are expected to be a focus for all three candidates — the election is already shaping up to be a referendum on the university’s handling of anti-Israel protests that year.
“We made mistakes. I think there’s no question about it. And I think a lot of these decisions were made from a place of real stress and real personal fear and real trying to do what was right based on the information we knew at the time,” Acker told JI on Wednesday. “You have to be realistic and protect the rights, yes, of pro-Palestine protesters. I think that’s one of our most sacred rights. But we can’t do so at the expense of other people’s rights.”
Brown is also opposed to divestment, and he, like Acker, had to deal with a protester showing up at his home in the middle of the night. But it did not change his stance on divestment.
“I had a masked person come to my home at 3 a.m. and nail a demand letter onto my door that said, Do these I think, four things by Thursday or else, and every one of them was, in essence, a form of punishment to the people in the nation of Israel,” Brown said. “My feeling is that I’m just fundamentally opposed to using the university as a mechanism, as a weapon, to punish any group or nation.”
Makled, who is the child of Lebanese immigrants, received a burst of national media attention early last year when he was detained at the Detroit airport on his way home from a family vacation. He claimed he was being questioned because he was representing a University of Michigan student who was facing felony charges of resisting arrest during a police raid on the anti-Israel encampment in 2024. He told the Michigan College Democrats that the Board of Regents’ handling of the protests was part of his reason for deciding to run.
“We have to support students, and we have to have the right to speak out, because that’s at the core of what we do when we’re going through the process of higher education,” Makled said at the meeting.
The charges against the protesters, including his client, were dropped last year. Afterward, in the courtroom, he made an impromptu speech.
“This was not about trespass. This was not about felony conduct. This was the criminalization of free speech and today the state of Michigan agrees,” said Makled. “There is still a genocide that is happening in Palestine. And we should never forget that today, we still get to stand firm and say, free Palestine.”
Makled did not respond to a request for comment.
Sen. John Fetterman asked members of the left, ‘Why can’t you just call it [antisemitism] what it is?’
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) talks with reporters after the Senate luncheons in the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, March 11, 2025.
Pro-Israel leaders in the United States on Thursday connected the murder of two Israeli Embassy employees outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington to the anti-Israel advocacy seen on the political extremes throughout the country since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, characterizing it as a culmination of such rhetoric and, in some cases, the failure of some politicians to denounce it.
The suspected shooter, Elias Rodriguez, shouted “free, free Palestine” and “I did it for Gaza” following the shooting, according to an eyewitness and video from the arrest. He reportedly published a manifesto railing against Israel.
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) said that the attack should be a signal to the left that it needs to rethink its rhetoric on Israel and Zionism. He compared the anti-Israel movement in the United States to a “cult” that has been stoked online and is using inherently violent slogans while its members “try to hide behind this idea that it’s free speech to intimidate and terrorize members of the Jewish community.”
He said that too many on the left have failed to call out antisemitism in the anti-Israel movement.
“Why can’t you just call it what it is, and then address and assert the pressure on the aggressor,” which is Hamas,” Fetterman said. “I can’t even imagine having to live with that ever-present antisemitism and what? Why can’t people just acknowledge and call that what it is?”
Fetterman predicted that the same elements of the left that have supported Luigi Mangione, the alleged assassin of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, will also rally behind Rodriguez.
“What part of my party does this come from where it’s like, we try to defend or try to justify assassinating an executive in broad daylight or … somebody [who] guns down” two people at a Jewish event, Fetterman asked incredulously.
Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter connected the shooting to the anti-Israel protests seen on college campuses and elsewhere in the country.
“The point of the matter is that on campuses around this country, where ideas — these are the temples of ideas — where smart ideas, intelligent ideas, moral ideas, truthful ideas, are supposed to be taught, we have useful idiots running around in support of the destruction of Israel,” Leiter said at a press conference.
“This is done in the name of a political agenda to eradicate the State of Israel,” Leiter added. “The State of Israel is now fighting a war on seven fronts. This is the eighth front, a war to demonize, delegitimize, to eradicate the right of the State of Israel to exist.”
He also connected rising global antisemitism to countries like France that have spoken out against Israel and are moving to recognize a Palestinian state.
A coalition of 42 Jewish organizations, in a statement, described the murders as “the direct consequence of rising antisemitic incitement in places such as college campuses, city council meetings, and social media that has normalized hate and emboldened those who wish to do harm.”
William Daroff, the CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said on X, “There is a direct line between demonizing Israel, tolerating antisemitic hate speech in the public square, and violent action.”
“We are now witnessing the deadly consequences of months of relentless antisemitic incitement — amplified by international organizations and political leaders across the globe — since the horrors of October 7,” Daroff said. “This is not a debate over policy; it is the mainstreaming of hatred, and its consequences are measured in blood.”
Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) said on X the attack was “the deadly consequence of normalizing Jew-hatred.”
“Since October 7, antisemitic attacks have surged — fueled by violent chants to ‘globalize the intifada’ and slurs like ‘dirty Zionist,’” Gottheimer said.
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), highlighting a tweet from a local anti-Israel group that praised the attack, said that, “Violence is not a bug but a feature of virulent Anti-Zionism.”
Arizona state Rep. Alma Hernandez called out a series of progressive lawmakers, saying, “spare us the fake outrage.”
“Two Israeli diplomats were murdered in cold blood—and you dare act concerned? Y’all have spent years fueling the hate and antisemitism that’s now exploding across America. Don’t pretend to care,” Hernandez continued, in an X post. “You are constantly surrounded by keffiyehs and “Free Palestine” and have pushed rhetoric that’s radicalized Americans into thinking murdering Jews and harassing them in the streets will somehow “liberate” Palestine and end the so-called genocide. No thanks.”
“We don’t want prayers from politicians who support individuals and organizations that promote this hate and who are being actively supported by said individuals and organizations while they run for office,” Hernandez added.
“You can’t support chants of ‘Globalize the Intifada’ and then be ‘appalled’ when people act it out,” Georgia state Rep. Esther Panitch said on X in response to a statement on the attack from Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) that did not acknowledge that the victims worked for the Israeli embassy and condemned “violence” broadly. Panitch also criticized other progressive Democrats who issued statements on the attack.
Panitch added, “Fascinating that those who campaigned against the Jewish community’s right to define their own experience of antisemitism are the ones who call ‘Globalizing the Intifada’ peaceful protests. The same ones who can’t say the word antisemitism in their posts.”
Jordan Acker, the University of Michigan regent who has been repeatedly targeted with antisemitic harassment and vandalism, drew a direct line between those incidents and demonstrations on the University of Michigan’s campus, and the Wednesday night murders.
“This isn’t protest. It’s a threat. This is what antisemitism looks like — and it’s escalating,” Acker said. “This is part of a terrifying trend: Jews in America being hunted, harassed, and attacked for being visibly Jewish — for existing in public. When we call it antisemitism, we’re told we’re overreacting. That our fear is political. That our pain is inconvenient. We’ve been gaslit for 18 months. Enough.”
He also called out progressives directly, saying “antisemitism isn’t any less dangerous when it comes wrapped in ‘progressive’ language.”
In response to the attack, some of the most prominent far-left critics of Israel on Capitol Hill have offered what many in the Jewish community have seen as half-hearted and inadequate responses.
“My heart breaks for the loved ones of the victims of last night’s attack in D.C. Nobody deserves such terrible violence. Everyone in our communities deserves to live in safety and in peace,” Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) said, linking to an article highlighting that the victims, Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, were Israeli Embassy workers, but not noting their backgrounds or the circumstances of the shooting in her own post.
Omar noted that the shooting took place at the Capital Jewish Museum but did not acknowledge the victims’ backgrounds and condemned violence broadly.
“I am appalled by the deadly shooting at the Capital Jewish Museum last night. Holding the victims, their families, and loved ones in my thoughts and prayers,” Omar said. “Violence should have no place in our country.”
The shift has been attributed to a mix of factors: stricter consequences from university leaders, fear of running afoul of Trump’s pledge to deport pro-Hamas foreign students and the issue generally losing steam among easily distracted students
Grace Yoon/Anadolu via Getty Images
Pro-Palestinian students at UCLA campus set up encampment in support of Gaza and protest the Israeli attacks in Los Angeles, California, United States on May 01, 2024.
For a brief moment, it looked like 2024 all over again: Tents were erected at Yale University’s central plaza on Tuesday night, with anti-Israel activists hoping to loudly protest the visit of far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to campus. Videos of students in keffiyehs, shouting protest slogans, started to spread online on Tuesday night.
But then something unexpected happened. University administrators showed up, threatening disciplinary action, and the protesters were told to leave — or face consequences. So they left. The new encampment didn’t last a couple hours, let alone overnight. The next day, Yale announced that it had revoked its recognition of Yalies4Palestine, the student group that organized the protest. (On Wednesday night, a large protest occurred outside the off-campus building where Ben-Gvir was speaking.)
Meanwhile, at Cornell University, President Michael Kotlikoff announced on Wednesday that he had canceled an upcoming campus performance by R&B singer Kehlani because of her history of anti-Israel social media posts. He wrote in an email to Cornell affiliates that he had heard from many people who were “angry, hurt and confused” that the school’s annual spring music festival “would feature a performer who has espoused antisemitic, anti-Israel sentiments in performances, videos and on social media.”
The quick decisions from administrators at Yale and Cornell to shut down anti-Israel activity reflect something of a vibe shift on American campuses. One year ago, anti-Israel encampments were, for a few weeks, de rigueur on campus quads across the nation. University leaders seemed paralyzed, unsure of how to handle protests that in many cases explicitly excluded Jewish or Zionist students and at times became violent. That’s a markedly different environment from what’s happening at those same schools so far this spring.
“In general, protest activity is way down this year as compared to last year,” Hillel International CEO Adam Lehman told Jewish Insider.
There is no single reason that protests have subsided. Jewish students, campus Jewish leaders and professionals at Jewish advocacy organizations attribute the change to a mix of factors: stricter consequences from university leaders, fear of running afoul of President Donald Trump’s pledge to deport pro-Hamas foreign students and the issue generally losing steam and cachet among easily distracted students.
Last spring, an encampment at The George Washington University was only dismantled after the university faced threats from Congress. Now, no such protest is taking place — which Daniel Schwartz, a Jewish history professor, said was likely due in part to the “sense that the university was going to be responding much more fiercely to anything resembling what happened last year.”
“For the most part, the enforcement of rules, the understanding of what the rules are, what you can do, what you can’t do, requiring people to get permits for protests, has really calmed things down [from] the sort of violence that we saw last year,” said Jordan Acker, a member of the Board of Regents of the University of Michigan, who has faced antisemitic vandalism and targeted, personal protests from Michigan students.
Michael Simon, the executive director at Northwestern Hillel, came into the school year with a “big question mark” of how the school’s new policies, which provide strict guidance for student protests and the type of behavior allowed at them, would be applied. “I’m going to say it with a real hedging: at least up until now, I would say we’ve seen the lower end of what I would have expected,” he said of campus anti-Israel protests.
Many major universities like Northwestern spent last summer honing their campus codes of conduct and their regulations for student protests, making clear at the start of the school year that similar actions would not be tolerated again. In February, for instance, Barnard College expelled two students who loudly disrupted an Israeli history class at Columbia,.
“For the most part, the enforcement of rules, the understanding of what the rules are, what you can do, what you can’t do, requiring people to get permits for protests, has really calmed things down [from] the sort of violence that we saw last year,” said Jordan Acker, a member of the Board of Regents of the University of Michigan, who has faced antisemitic vandalism and targeted, personal protests from Michigan students.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has pressured top universities to crack down on antisemitic activity. The president’s threats to revoke federal funding if universities don’t get antisemitism under control has drawn pushback — Harvard is suing the Trump administration over its decision to withhold $2.2 billion in federal funds from the school — but it has also led universities to take action to address the problem.
Sharon Nazarian, an adjunct professor at UCLA and the vice chair of the Anti-Defamation League’s board of directors, said there is “no question” that “the national atmosphere of fear among university administrators for castigation and targeting by the [Trump] administration is also present” at UCLA and other University of California campuses.
“My sense is that being anti-Israel is not as much of the popular thing anymore,” Evan Cohen, a senior at the University of Michigan, said at a Wednesday webinar hosted by Hillel International for Jewish high school seniors. “On my campus, there are other hot topic issues. There might be more focus on what’s happening with U.S. domestic politics.”
Rule-breaking student activists also face a heightened risk of law enforcement action. A dozen anti-Israel student protesters were charged with felonies this month for vandalizing the Stanford University president’s office last June. On Wednesday, local, state and federal law enforcement officials in Michigan raided the homes of three people connected to anti-Israel protests at the University of Michigan. Protesters’ extreme tactics have scared off some would-be allies.
“I think some of the most activist students went too far at the end of last year with the takeover of the president’s office and a lot of pretty intense graffiti in important places on campus,” said Rabbi Jessica Kirschner, the executive director of Hillel at Stanford. “I think a lot of other students looked at that and said, ‘Oh, this is perhaps not where we want to be.’”
Students’ priorities shift each year, and other issues beyond Israel are also vying for their attention. Trump’s policies targeting foreign students are drawing ire from students at liberal universities, many of which have large populations of international students.
“My sense is that being anti-Israel is not as much of the popular thing anymore,” Evan Cohen, a senior at the University of Michigan, said at a Wednesday webinar hosted by Hillel International for Jewish high school seniors. “On my campus, there are other hot topic issues. There might be more focus on what’s happening with U.S. domestic politics.”
But the lack of protests does not mean that campus life has returned to normal for Jewish students, many of whom still fear — and face — opprobrium for their pro-Israel views.
“It’s easy to avoid the protests but if you are an Israeli student or a Jewish student perceived to be a Zionist, you should expect to be discriminated against in social spaces at the university,” Rabbi Jason Rubenstein, executive director of Harvard Hillel, told JI. “That is the most powerful way students are impacted by all of this.”
Ken Marcus, founder and chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which since Oct. 7 has represented dozens of Jewish students in Title VI civil rights cases against their universities, said that campus-related lawsuits are only faintly slowing down this semester.
“A lot of the staff and the administration think that, ‘OK, since there’s no protest outside, all the Jewish students must feel OK, and let’s put all this stuff that happened in the spring behind us.’ It’s really not the case,” said Or Yahalom, a senior at Northwestern University who was born in Israel. “That doesn’t mean that it’s all better for students. Jewish students are increasingly afraid to speak openly about their identity or connection to Israel, except in private, safe Jewish spaces.”
“Some campuses have been less intense than during last year’s historically awful period, but others have been bad enough,” Marcus told JI. “I believe that the federal crackdown, coupled with the impact of lawsuits and Title VI cases, has had a favorable impact at many campuses, but the problems have hardly gone away.”
Or Yahalom, a senior at Northwestern University who was born in Israel, recently attended a dinner with Northwestern President Michael Schill, who has faced criticism from Jewish Northwestern affiliates — including several members of its antisemitism advisory committee — for what they saw as the administration’s failure to adequately address antisemitism.
“A lot of the staff and the administration think that, ‘OK, since there’s no protest outside, all the Jewish students must feel OK, and let’s put all this stuff that happened in the spring behind us.’ It’s really not the case,” said Yahalom. “That doesn’t mean that it’s all better for students. Jewish students are increasingly afraid to speak openly about their identity or connection to Israel, except in private, safe Jewish spaces.”
Even without massive encampments, disruptive anti-Israel protests and campus actions have not gone away entirely, though they have been more infrequent this academic year. A Northwestern academic building housing the school’s Holocaust center was vandalized with “DEATH TO ISRAEL” graffiti last week. The office of Joseph Pelzman, an economist at The George Washington University who authored a plan calling for the U.S. to relocate Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and redevelop the enclave, was vandalized in February. The Georgetown University Student Government Association is slated to hold a campus-wide referendum on university divestment from companies and academic institutions with ties to Israel at the end of the month. Smaller-scale protests continue at Columbia, with students chaining themselves to the Manhattan university’s main gate this week to protest the ICE detention of Mohsen Mahdawi and Mahmoud Khalil, two foreign students who had led protests last year.
Leaders of the University of Michigan’s anti-Israel coalition held a sham trial for the university president and Board of Regents members in the middle of the Diag, the main campus quad, this week. The event took place without issue, and the activists left when it ended.
“I wouldn’t want to say that it’s perfect,” said Acker, the Board of Regents member. “But it’s certainly much better than a year ago.”
The school year isn’t over. Some students at Columbia are planning to erect another encampment this month, NBC News reported on Wednesday.
But they’ll be doing so at an institution with new leadership, weeks after Columbia reached an agreement with the Trump administration, where the Ivy League university pledged to take stronger action against antisemitism to avoid a massive funding cut. The pressure on Columbia to crack down on any encampment will be massive.
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