Two years after their attacks on the administration and regents of the University of Michigan, 8 members of the Ann Arbor "Student Intifada" have finally been indicted on various charges of conspiracy and property destruction and now face hefty fines and years in prison. Predictably, most of the media is siding with them.
Background
In the Spring 2024 semester, students at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, set up an "encampment" at the so-called Diag – short for the diagonal intersections at the heart of the campus. Like other students across the country, they called themselves the Student Intifada, and the area they briefly controlled they called the "Gaza Free University." As the academic year came to a close, Santa Ono, president of the university, ordered it cleared, on May 21, 2024.
This much is well known.
But until recently, few knew about how the University of Michigan's Student Intifada struck back, viciously and personally. On June 10, 2026, the Department of Justice unsealed charges against 8 students who were the ring leaders of the University of Michigan's 2024 "resistance."
Then the media came to their rescue.
Media Reaction
Soon, hundreds of outlets published articles that misrepresent the perpetrators, the charges against them, and the victims of their alleged crimes. Most were merely aping the Washington Post and the New York Times.
The Washington Post, where journalism dies in broad daylight, struck first on June 10, 2026 with an article by Katie Mettler and Danielle Douglas-Gabriel titled "DOJ charges pro-Palestinian activists with threatening U. of Michigan officials".
Then came the New York Times' June 13, 2026, article by Mitch Smith titled "Threats, Free Speech and the Case Against U. of Michigan Activists" leaving no doubt that the Old Grey Lady has donned a keffiyeh.
Only the National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) – the leader of the Student Intifada – goes further in its promotion of the defendants.
Whenever SJP types get caught, arrested, or suspended, NSJP jumps to their defense, dubbing them the "Stanford 11," the "Swarthmore 9," and, in the case of the eight losers pictured above, the "Michigan 8," or just the "MU8."
NSJP writes on its feverish Instagram page that the MU8 indictment is nothing more than "a case of targeting Palestine activism" and proof of rampant "repression against Palestine activism." It promises that, "We will not be apologetic for our actions to protest genocide."
Neither will the Washington Post or New York times, it appears.
Not "Pro-Palestinian" But Anti-Israel
Much of the media, and all of the Student Intifada, portray the kind of "resistance" that got the MU8 into trouble as "pro-Palestinian" when in fact, as I wrote in 2023, there is nothing "pro-Palestinian" about the post-October 7 protest phenomenon. Today's protesters don't want a "2-State Solution" any more than Hamas does. They want a single state – "Palestine from the river to the sea."
Like Hamas, they long for intimidated, captive, and ultimately dead Jews, both in "48" (as they sometimes call Israel) and throughout the world, which is what "Globalize the Intifada" means.
Nevertheless, the Washington Post writers (it required 2 of them) soft-pedal both the intentions and the violence of the defendants, characterizing it as mere "pro-Palestinian activism."
Smith refers to the defendants as "activists" in the title and "pro-Palestinian activists" in the subtitle. He repeats the misnomer 5 times in the article.
The Victims
Before looking at what these 8 "activists" did to earn their 15 minutes of infamy, it's worth looking into the targets of their "activism."
The 63-page criminal indictment lists 6 victims, describing them without naming them.
Victims 1 and 2 ("V-1" and "V-2" as they are referred to in the indictment) are members of the University of Michigan Board of Regents. V-3 is the Chief Investment Officer at the university. V-4 is Santa Ono, president of the university from 2022 to 2025. V-5 is a member of University of Michigan Department of Public Safety Services (DPSS). The last victim, V-6, is a student whom the defendants feared would "snitch" on them and therefore threatened into silence.
Many of the individual victims were not only threatened and harassed, but their homes, and in some cases their businesses, were also targeted.
After the Michigan headquarters of Rolls Royce Solutions America, Inc. was vandalizing (because of its alleged role in "colonial genocide") on June 30, 2024, the Student Intifada boasted in a social media post: "As beneficiaries of this imperial system, our duty to Palestine is to damage, disrupt, and destroy the colonizers' operations by any means necessary."
They also vandalized the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit's Max M. Fisher Building, on October 7, 2024. Targeting a "Jewish Center" proves that the defendants' "anti-Zionism" is really just a cover for their antisemitism.
The Indicted Students
Like NSJP, the New York Times and Washington Post portray the students as free speech warriors, deflecting attention away from the crimes they are alleged to have committed with cheap anti-Trump bromides.
The Washington Post states that "the Trump administration has taken a hard line against pro-Palestinian protesters on campuses," adding that "Wednesday's federal charges amounted to an escalation of that campaign."
Smith concurs, claiming that the decision to indict "reflected an escalation of the Trump administration's efforts to crack down on pro-Palestinian activism." He even repeats one of the defense lawyer's description of his clients as "high-achieving students with no criminal records," emphasizing that they were not accused "of physically hurting anyone."
Smith calls Jonathan Zou, D-5, "an award-winning engineering student." He doesn't mention that Zou is alleged to have thrown glass jars filled with butyric acid through the windows of the provost's house.
Smith describes Zainab Hakim, D-1, as "a National Merit Scholar." There are dozens of stories from 2023 and 2024 featuring photos of her protesting and hectoring passing students with her megaphone. It's a wonder she found time to study.
Colin Weger, D-8, who looks like the first runner-up in a Hunter S. Thompson look-alike contest, apparently isn't a National Merit Scholar. The New York Times notes only that Weger "had a job and was planning to resume his studies at a community college in the fall."
Of all the defendants, Paige Feyock, "D-3," is the star of the indictment. She was seemingly in on all of the "autonomous actions" and author of some very quotable lines. Unfortunately the New York Times and Washington Post aren't all that interested in quoting her.
Smith writes that she "worked as a doula" and "was planning to move to Illinois for medical school." Indeed, as a 2022 graduate of Wellesley College (sociology and Africana studies double major), Feyock worked at something called the Mother Lab. Her bio pages indicates her intent to go to medical school and specialize in Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Feyock and her alleged co-conspirators communicated with each other over encrypted platforms like Signal and CryptPad.fr for planning illegal activities. They posted photos of their vandalism at websites like Unity of Fields (a/k/a/ "Pal Action"), Unsalted Counter Info, and the Tahrir Coalition.
The messages quoted in the Indictment make for some chilling reading.
Feyock's future patients might be interested in knowing about her message that President Ono has "gotta die" and that his "entire family is now on my hit list."
They might also want to know about her May 21, 2024, chat with Ahmet Korkaya, D-4, who was in medical school at the time. As Korkaya and Feyock discuss killing Santa Ono, UM Regent V-2, and the Chief Investment Officer V-3, Feyock suddenly interjects "Let's get [president Ono's] kids bruh and [V-2's] too."
Korkaya responds "wallah [by Allah] I'm gonna be the dirtiest fucking doctor ever I'm gonna be [V-1's] doctor poison her ass slowly."
Feyock agrees and adds "We need people following [V-1] get into that house then burn it down."
Free Speech?
The New York Times and the Washington Post would have their readers believe that the case is about "free speech," when in fact it is about violence and threats of violence.
Even more objectively, it is about vandalism. The defendants are accused of spray-painting profanities on private homes and businesses. They were especially fond of the F-word, leaving messages like "F-ck Maersk," "F-ck RR [Rolls Royce]," "F-ck the IOF," "F-ck DPSS," and, of course, "F-ck Israel."
Freedom to swear is one thing, but the first amendment doesn't permit one to paint messages on others people's property. Among those messages were many inverted red triangles, a Hamas symbol, and red hand prints, another symbol of murder.
In addition to the spray-painted messages, the defendants allegedly spread nails in the driveway of UM's Chief Investment Officer's home and threw mason jars filled with butyric acid through the windows of UM's president and provost.
None of this comes close to first amendment protected speech, or even academic freedom.
Acknowledgement of Guilt?
In spite of all the New York Times, Washington Post, and NSJP blathering about free speech, the defendants seemed to acknowledge their guilt.
The indictment cites Paige Feyock telling Zainab Hakim on July 16, 2024, that she worried the student "snitch," (V-6), was "going to send us to federal prison."
On October 9, 2024, as Feyock and Hakim discussed the problems they would face if discovered, Feyock assured Hakim not to worry because law enforcement "was not smart enough" to catch them.
On November 21, 2024, she changed her tune, telling Hakim that she had, in fact, been identified: "It's definitely over for me in the future tho bc [V-5] and [another UMDPSS officer] got a very good look at me were arguing with me while I was in the building."
These are not the comments of people exercising free speech.
Conclusion
Curiously, neither the Washington Post or New York Times writers question why these "pro-Palestine activists" were so obsessed with hurting people and damaging property thousands of miles away from "Palestine."
The two most important news sources in the nation either do not understand the dangers posed by the Student Intifada, or they are actively working to assist it by portraying its violent activity as free speech. I lean towards the latter.
I expect that, whatever the motives, the New York Times and Washington Post, as well as their followers throughout the media, will continue misrepresenting the Student Intifada on every level – the violence, the victims of that violence, and the perpetrators of that violence.
Chief IPT Political Correspondent A.J. Caschetta is a principal lecturer at the Rochester Institute of Technology and a fellow at Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum where he is also a Milstein fellow.
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