At the same time, law enforcement was preparing to arrest members of an anti-Zionist network centered around the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.<\/p>\n
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\t\t\t\tBy signing up, you agree to the terms<\/a><\/p>\n The Michigan suspects<\/a> allegedly discussed killing, \u201cterrorizing,\u201d and torturing university regents, other targets connected to Israel, and their targets\u2019 families.<\/p>\n The campaign\u2019s end goal was a \u201crevolution\u201d and an \u201coverthrow\u201d of the United States, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n The two groups appeared to come from opposite ends of the political spectrum, however. The network targeting the White House event espoused a far-right Christian ideology, while the alleged Michigan conspirators aligned with the far left.<\/p>\n The cases illustrated how fringe activists on both the far left and far right see violent opposition to Israel and its US affiliates as a means to domestic revolution and overthrowing the government.<\/p>\n \u201cWhether it\u2019s Israel or Jewish issues, they\u2019re often part of the worldview of those who take it to the next level to want to engage in violence,\u201d said Oren Segal, the head of the Anti-Defamation League\u2019s Center on Extremism. \u201cIt\u2019s part of the fabric of a conspiracy.\u201d<\/p>\n Shared antipathy toward Israel and Jews<\/p>\n In addition to their shared revolutionary goals, the two groups converged in their antipathy toward Israel and Jews.<\/p>\n The Michigan activists idolized Hamas. They had the terrorist group\u2019s propaganda stored on their electronic devices and traded \u201cHamas killing videos\u201d with each other, prosecutors said in court filings.<\/p>\n \t On the first anniversary of the October 2023 Hamas invasion of Israel, they allegedly carried out a vandalism spree against University of Michigan officials and the Jewish Federation of Detroit, including with inverted red triangles, a Hamas symbol.<\/p>\n One of the suspects, Colin Weger, had patches for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and a sticker that said \u201cTie me to a missile and fire it at Tel Aviv,\u201d a Hamas slogan.<\/p>\n Zainab Hakim, the group\u2019s \u201cringleader,\u201d wrote protest chants for the group, such as \u201cAl Qassam make us proud,\u201d referring to Hamas\u2019s military wing.<\/p>\n One of the suspects had a flag in his apartment showing the late Hamas spokesperson Abu Obeida and another, an aspiring doctor, said he had been thinking about \u201cjoining [the] Hamas medical wing.\u201d<\/p>\n Suspect Jonathan Zou had images on his phone that said \u201cdeath to the Jewish bastards.\u201d<\/p>\n Proper\u2019s family said he had been posting antisemitic content and statements in support of Adolf Hitler on social media.<\/p>\n His call to target members of Congress affiliated with Israel included information about how much money each lawmaker received \u201cfrom pro-Israel PACs,\u201d a court filing said.<\/p>\n Another defendant, Michael Alan Thomas, blamed government corruption on Jews and blamed Jewish people and Israel for the war with Iran.<\/p>\n \t One of the Michigan suspects had a painting showing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s bloody, decapitated head, while the White House plotters believed Netanyahu would attend the targeted event and put him on their hit list.<\/p>\n \u201cSharing extremist messaging is acting as a kind of lubricant to proceed to real-world violence or to consider real-world violence,\u201d Segal said. \u201cIt\u2019s the way that antisemitic and anti-Israel conspiracies work. They help nudge people over the edge in many of the cases that we\u2019ve seen.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnti-Israel and antisemitic conspiracies fit nicely into the worldview of most extremists, one way or another. It\u2019s the thing that brings folks together,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Neither group appeared to have expressed antipathy toward any other foreign country.<\/p>\n In both cases, the charges remain allegations, not convictions, and the investigations are still in relatively early stages.<\/p>\n An assassination plot and a family on a hit list<\/p>\n Proper\u2019s network targeted a mixed martial arts event attended by US President Donald Trump on the White House lawn earlier this month.<\/p>\n The group planned to dispatch small, explosive-laden drones that would detonate over the event, forcing an evacuation.<\/p>\n \t Attackers armed with rifles, stationed near an evacuation point, would shoot their victims as they fled the UFC event, according to the plan described by federal prosecutors.<\/p>\n Proper\u2019s family called local police to report their son\u2019s concerning behavior, such as stockpiling weapons, body armor and survival gear, his social media activity, and his plans to meet his online co-conspirators in person.<\/p>\n The family\u2019s call led to the FBI preventing the planned attack and the arrests of at least eight suspects around the US.<\/p>\n The FBI described the plan as \u201ca plot to assassinate federal officials.\u201d<\/p>\n In Michigan, federal authorities charged five anti-Zionist protesters for allegedly threatening Jews, University of Michigan leaders and law enforcement after the start of the war in Gaza.<\/p>\n The activists made demands of the University of Michigan leadership, such as divestment from Israel, investigations into university policy, and statements against Israel.<\/p>\n When the university did not comply, the suspects prepared \u201cautonomous actions\u201d to further their agenda. They researched and surveilled the targets and discussed using poison, bombs, vehicular attacks and \u201cpsychological torture\u201d against their opponents.<\/p>\n \t In one message, in May 2024, two of the defendants agreed to \u201ckill,\u201d \u201ctorment,\u201d and \u201cterrorize\u201d their targets. One of the suspects said a target\u2019s \u201centire family\u201d was on his \u201chit list,\u201d that people \u201cgotta die,\u201d and another said the alleged conspirators should \u201cget\u201d the children of two targets, according to court filings.<\/p>\n The activists vandalized homes with Hamas symbols, broke windows and hurled glass jars filled with butyric acid, used as a \u201cstink bomb,\u201d into homes where children were sleeping.<\/p>\n Seeking revolution from different sides<\/p>\n The two groups both sought revolution, but from different angles. The White House conspirators had a nationalist agenda, while the Michigan network expressed affiliation with international communist, anarchist and Islamist groups.<\/p>\n The White House conspirators\u2019 ideology appeared related to\u00a0accelerationism<\/a>, an extremist, white supremacist belief that violent acts can accelerate societal collapse to make way for a white nationalist state.<\/p>\n \t The group \u201cbelieved that the United States needed to be torn down so that it could be rebuilt,\u201d prosecutors said.<\/p>\n \u201cI believe we are at the \u2018trigger event\u2019 point. Meaning to set this off, we need an event or events that cause people to realize the revolution has officially begun,\u201d one of the suspects said.<\/p>\n Thomas said \u201cthe aim of this and subsequent attacks was to create enough chaos to bring about the overthrow of the US government,\u201d according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n Proper\u2019s mother said Proper had adopted a \u201cChristian-based\u201d and \u201cultra-religious\u201d ideology.<\/p>\n \u201cOur goal is to in a general sense \u2018restore the old republic\u2019 our constitutional republic has been stolen by corporations, politicians and foreign actors they have usurped the power from the people,\u201d one of the suspects said in a group chat<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Michigan network\u2019s ideology appeared to align with the far-left anti-Zionist movement\u2019s beliefs.<\/p>\n \t The group targeted those they deemed \u201cfascist,\u201d \u201cimperialist\u201d and \u201ccolonialist,\u201d an assistant US attorney said in a briefing.<\/p>\n Ringleader Hakim said that divestment from Israel was \u201cthe goal but in the sense that it brings about revolutionary change.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe expressed concern that their actions would have only a limited impact on divestment and possible \u2018overthrow and revolution,’\u201d prosecutors said, adding that the group was \u201cworking toward a total \u2018revolution.’\u201d<\/p>\n One of the suspects had a booklet described as an anarchist guide to \u201ccommitting crimes aimed at overthrowing governments.\u201d<\/p>\n The suspects said they wanted to build something like the Weather Underground, a far-left 1960s domestic terror group that sought to overthrow the US government.<\/p>\n Weger allegedly had paraphernalia for communist and terrorist groups, such as a headband for the Chinese Red Guards, along with patches for communist insurgencies in Turkey and the Philippines, and a Syrian guerrilla group.<\/p>\n Like the White House conspirators, Weger was heavily armed. He allegedly bought an AK-47, a silencer, scopes and other tactical gear.<\/p>\n Both groups had resorted to violence because they believed peaceful measures to implement change had been ineffective, and shared their grievances and plots on encrypted messaging apps.<\/p>\n \u2018Death to the USA\u2019<\/p>\n Segal said that conspiracies about Israel or Jews have long alleged Jewish control of American policy and have been used to promote broader concerns or opposition to the US. Extremists also view the US as enabling Israel and Jews, or being culpable for their actions, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cFor those that believe Israel and\/or Jews have a hand in controlling our government, who view the US as a tool of the Jews or Israel, the idea that going after the hand that controls the government could help start a revolution is not all that surprising,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The two networks are not the only anti-Israel groups that have sought a revolution in the US in recent years.<\/p>\n Last year, federal prosecutors charged a far-left group in California called the Turtle Island Liberation Front with plotting a mass bombing campaign.<\/p>\n The group, like the Michigan suspects, also identified with Palestinian terrorists \u2014 its ringleader identified as a \u201cHamas fangirl\u201d<\/a> \u2014 and had targeted Jewish institutions due to connections to Israel.<\/p>\n They repeatedly hoped for an end to the US. In one message, a suspect wrote to the group, \u201cdeath to israel death to the usa death to colonizers.\u201d<\/p>\n \t On the other side of the spectrum, the white supremacist Terrorgram Collective<\/a> targeted Jews, US officials, other minorities and infrastructure to accelerate government collapse<\/a>.<\/p>\n The so-called horseshoe theory describes the fringes on the left and right nearing a convergence, particularly when it comes to Jews and Israel.<\/p>\n The alleged White House conspirators and the Michigan activists borrowed from the other end of the political spectrum, for example.<\/p>\n Investigators said Proper appeared to have taken images from Track AIPAC, a group founded by anti-Israel leftists.<\/p>\n Paige Feyock, one of the Michigan suspects, suggested burning a cross on a \u201cbrown\u201d professor\u2019s front yard. When she was asked if that was a tactic used by the Ku Klux Klan, she said, \u201cThey were onto something.\u201d<\/p>\n Hostility to Israel, Jews and Zionism also extends beyond the familiar left-right divide, appearing in ideologies such as Islamism and Third Worldism that differ in doctrine but overlap in treating Jews or the Jewish state as a symbol of the enemy.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/AP24142421936809-e1781117375322.jpg\")
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\n\t\tAn anti-Israel protest encampment at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo\/Ed White, File)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Untitled-1-5.jpg\")
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\n\t\tA painting found in a suspect\u2019s home shows Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s decapitated head. (Eastern District of Michigan court filing)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/download-300x480.jpg\")
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\n\t\tTycen Proper. (Franklin County Sheriff\u2019s Office)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/AP26166184658216-e1781630970703.jpg\")
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\n\t\tUS President Donald Trump, center, talks to UFC head Dana White, left, alongside first lady Melania Trump, during UFC Freedom 250 at the White House, June 15, 2026, in Washington. (Evan Vucci\/Pool Photo via AP)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Screenshot-2026-06-24-at-3.29.29-PM.png\")
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\n\t\tScreenshots show alleged conspirators plotting a drone and sniper attack against a White House event. (Central District of California court filing)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Screenshot-2026-06-24-at-3.24.08-PM-300x480.png\")
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\n\t\tSuspects in the Michigan case took photos of themselves after vandalizing their targets, with paint splattered on their clothes. (Eastern District of Michigan court filing)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1782609616_275_Untitled-1-3.jpg\")
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\n\t\tThe alleged conspirators in a far-left bombing plot in California, in photos released by US federal authorities in December 2025. From left: Audrey Carroll; Dante Gaffield; Zachary Page; and Tina Cheng-Ting. (US Attorney\u2019s Office for the Central District of California)<\/p>\n