“In America, we rule by law not by fear,” U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan Jerome F. Gorgon Jr. said on Wednesday. “These alleged threats and attempts to terrorize government officials, businesses, and the Jewish Federation are anti-American. We will counter intimidation with justice.”The defendants, who range in age from 21 to 28, allegedly promulgated a series of demands focused on “divestment” from Israel after the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre by Hamas. One conspirator stated publicly that the group “must escalate, mobilize, and organize to demand divestment by any means necessary,” according to the DOJ.
Group members allegedly spray-painted “Free Palestine” and “Intifada” onto the windows of a Jewish Federation of Detroit building on the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack. “Intifada” is the Arabic word for “uprising,” though it holds violent connotations in the Israeli collective memory as a reference to periods of violent terrorist attacks. The group also left behind upside-down triangles, a symbol popularized by Hamas’s military wing.
In another incident, Alexander Matthew Sepulveda and Jonathan Hongru Zou allegedly threw glass jars filled with a blue substance and food compost at the University of Michigan provost’s home. The pair reportedly graffitied the home with the same red triangles, along with the words “Divest” and “Free Palestine.”
