What We Learned From the Federal Charges Against a Pro-Hamas Ring

https://www.commentary.org/seth-mandel/what-we-learned-from-the-federal-charges-against-a-pro-hamas-ring/

by Seth Mandel

Two bright young University of Michigan-connected pro-Hamas activists were having a conversation in 2024 about their spree of destruction aimed at school administrators and Jewish targets.

Given the illegality of their actions and the extent of their group’s planning before each alleged crime, federal conspiracy charges weren’t out of the question if they got caught. Their actions, one activist said to another, could “hit RICO territory very quickly.”

Well, congrats kids—you and your friends have just been indicted on federal conspiracy charges. Despite one defendant’s assessment that law enforcement is “not smart enough” to catch them, law enforcement caught them.

To be clear right off the bat: No one in this case is being punished for protesting. They are being indicted for behavior they knew fell into the category of federal criminal conspiracy. And the way that they talked about their mission, as captured in the communications referenced throughout the federal complaint, is criminally deranged.

Indeed, what we are dealing with here is a genuine crisis of college-aged young men and women; it is the ungluing of a generation, and it is already fully infecting everything from education to culture to politics.

It is important to see beyond any doubt that every Hamas-worshiping tentifada activist knows exactly he’s doing. There’s no “youthful innocence” here. No one’s just getting carried away. Here is the type of mind that we’re dealing with, courtesy of one of the conversations between defendants regarding the victims (one of whom appears to have been the university president at the time):

“KORKAYA: we are finding [V-4]’s address if we don’t have it already [so I can] drive my car into it.

“KORKAYA: [V-4]’s entire family is now on my hit list.

“FEYOCK: Let’s get [V-4’s] kids bruh / and [V-2’s] too.

“KORKAYA: wallah [by God] paige i wanna do something / the only way to clear my conscious [sic].

“KORKAYA: wallah [by God] I’m gonna be the dirtiest f[…]ing doctor ever / I’m gonna be [V-1]’s doctor /poison her ass slowly.

“FEYOCK: (agreeing) We need people following [V-1]/ get into that house then burn it down.”

They threatened their victims, handed them a list of demands, and then used the anniversary of Hamas’s attacks to vandalize the families’ homes in the middle of the night, leaving painted assassination threats (the upside-down red triangle Hamas uses to paint targets) and fake blood. In some cases, they spread loose nails, threw stink bombs, and left dolls arranged to look like mangled corpses. That was October 2024, and in November the group allegedly hit additional targets.

One of the places they hit was the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit. According to the complaint, the defendants had trespassed on the property a few months earlier, confronted staff, and threatened: “I’ll be back… we’re going to come back with lots of people.”

Another example of the insanity of the progressive anti-Zionist activist class is its saturation with wartime “resistance” rhetoric. The group of activists allegedly carrying out these actions posted a message after one of them. It read:

“As beneficiaries of this imperial system, our duty to Palestine is to damage, disrupt, and destroy the colonizers’ operations by any means necessary. We call on revolutionaries across the world to take decisive, escalatory action to halt the war machine… Glory to our martyrs, power to our freedom fighters! Long live the Intifada.”

This is the rhetoric of lunatics, precisely the kind of psychotic terror-worshiping loose cannons you’d want law enforcement keeping an eye on. But if you’re the parent of a college student, such people are very likely to be your kid’s classmate or dorm mate. And the faculty and administration often prefer this type of Jew-hunting maniac to your kid, if the two of them are ever in competition for academic advancement. These are the institutions to which Americans pay top dollar to educate the country’s next in line. Something is deeply broken.

As it happens, one of the defendants accused of participating in this group’s alleged campaign of terrorizing families is Mariam Odeh. According to the Detroit News, Odeh worked as recently as April for the Senate campaign of Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed. The campaign confirmed the report. This work came after the events described in the complaint. So perhaps these folks have a future after all—so long as they want to work in Democratic Party politics.

Another connection in the thread: In April 2024, pro-Hamas activists set up an encampment on a main open area on Michigan’s campus. A fire marshal was called in to assess, and he found that “the densely placed tents with no egress pathways and the highly combustible nature of the tent materials and other furnishings have made this encampment highly susceptible for a fire to occur and inescapable for any occupants to flee in the event of a fire. If a fire were to occur within this encampment, the human casualty rate would be catastrophic.”

Those at the encampment refused to pack up their generator and multiple electronic devices and tents and chickenwire and everything else that made it a hazard, so the school had law enforcement clear it out. Those resisting the police were charged. A man named Amir Makled was the defense lawyer for some of them. Eventually, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel was pressured to drop the charges because Democrats complained loudly that her Jewish faith prevented her from fairly prosecuting the case. When Nessel gave in to this chilling anti-Semitic pressure campaign, Makled rejoiced.

In April, Makled was chosen by the state Democratic Party to replace one of the University of Michigan regents, Jordan Acker. As it happens, Acker is Jewish and was one of the targets of the harassment and intimidation campaign for which Odeh and her associates stand accused. Makled has also appeared at Sayed’s campaign rallies.

That is where we are in progressive politics of 2026. And it is the state of higher education in various places around the United States. And, yes, it is a sign of a very broken academic and political culture.

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