TWO PRO-Palestine candidates won victories against Israeli-backed opponents in Michigan Democratic Party primary races delivering a sharp rebuke to the establishment’s sustained legal campaign against University of Michigan student activists protesting against Israel’s genocide in Palestine.
Ann Arbor’s progressive Jewish prosecutor Eli Savit defeated Karen McDonald in the state Attorney General’s race, winning by a 58-42 margin among party delegates at a nominating convention.
McDonald had raised $840,000, more than her three opponents combined and over twice Savit’s total, with at least $200,000 coming from local pro-Israel donors.
Her backers included pro-Israel U-M (University of Michigan) regents Jordan Acker, Mark Bernstein, and Denise Ilitch, alongside leadership in the local pro-Israel Jewish Federation chapter, AIPAC donors, and Friends of the IDF donors.
She also carried endorsements from major unions, Democratic leaders, EMILY’s List, and donations from top state corporations including DTE Energy and Blue Cross.
None of this was enough to sway the party’s rank and file.
In the race for a seat on the U-M board of regents, defence attorney Amir Makled defeated incumbent regent Acker, who had helped lead the university’s legal assault on pro-Palestinian students.
Makled, who is Lebanese-American, had represented some of the students who beat U-M’s prosecutions.
He and incumbent Paul Brown, the other winner among three candidates vying for two open seats, will face Republican opponents in November’s general election.
Makled’s victory came despite an onslaught of allegations that he is antisemitic and a Hezbollah
supporter.
He drew criticism for posts on X in 2025, including a retweet lamenting the death of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and another, from Candace Owens, that referred to Israelis as ‘demons’ over Israel’s attacks on Palestinian Christians.
‘The electorate is seeing through the nonsense and smears,’ Makled said.
He told US based Drop Site the wins show ‘the electorate is done with AIPAC-aligned candidates and their smear campaigns’.
For two years, establishment Democrats have waged a broad legal offensive against pro-Palestinian student activists at U-M.
The university dispatched police in May 2024 to violently break up a campus encampment, and officers forwarded dozens of warrant requests to Savit’s office.
Finding the protesters were largely peaceful, Savit declined to charge, a decision that infuriated U-M’s leadership.
The university then recruited Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel to prosecute students.
Nessel, who has deep ties to the state’s pro-Israel establishment and regents, filed charges against eleven protesters in September 2024.
Both Savit and Makled opposed U-M’s ongoing investigations into pro-Palestinian students.
It is widely believed Savit will end Nessel’s remaining cases.
Acker’s loss ‘is a warning to the rest of the regents’, said one campus activist targeted by an investigation.
Many of Makled’s campaign organisers were students, the advocate noted, adding that U-M students in 2026 understand more clearly than before the regents’ roles in campus attacks on the pro-Palestinian movement.
Bilal Baydoun, a Dearborn-based writer and political commentator, said the losses show that ‘anyone who thinks Palestine is a fringe or “wedge” issue in Democratic politics is fooling themselves’.
‘Like Democrats across the country, Michigan Dems are tired of being censored and smeared for wanting leaders who will speak out on a defining moral issue of our time,’ Baydoun said.
‘Responding to this growing consensus with more contempt for the party’s base of support is obviously going to fail,’ Baydoun said.
Pro-Palestine protest at Technion UK fundraiser at Shaw Theatre
Activists gathered outside the Shaw Theatre on Euston Road on Wednesday evening, where Technion UK was holding a Yom Ha’atzmaut fundraiser marking 78 years since the founding of the state of Israel.
Staff at the theatre had refused to work the event, forcing organisers to bring in external personnel.
Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology, has been described as the university with the greatest ties to the Israeli military.
Its researchers developed the technology behind the Iron Dome air defence system, and Israeli President Isaac Herzog delivered a video address to the 450 guests inside.
From the outset, there was a large and disproportionate police presence for what was a peaceful demonstration, with protesters penned behind barriers and surrounded by officers on all sides.
It might have remained that way had the Metropolitan Police not moved to make an arrest using what protesters described as undue and unwarranted force.
At least twenty officers stormed into the protest area, knocking people aside to reach their target: Kamran Ahmed, one of the Filton 24 activists only recently released on bail after spending more than a year on remand and undertaking a 65-day hunger strike in prison.
Ahmed’s arrest was followed by further aggression towards protesters on at least two more occasions, resulting in two additional arrests.
As demonstrators were crushed against barriers facing onto Euston Road, it was described as a miracle that no one was seriously injured.
When the protest ended and demonstrators began to disperse towards Euston Station, the group was flanked by two lines of Metropolitan Police officers who appeared intent on making further arrests.
Sure enough, another three arrests followed as the group crossed Euston Road and moved towards the station.
Witnesses described these as unduly violent, with three women seized as they made their way peacefully from the demonstration.
Having been arrested, Ahmed made a speech calling on supporters to mobilise outside Woolwich Crown Court, where the retrial of Filton 24 defendants is continuing.
In total, ten pro-Palestine protesters were arrested during the evening.
From the outset it was clear that the heavy police presence was designed to keep protesters as far from the theatre as possible and to shut the demonstration down as quickly as possible.
Those attending the fundraiser were shielded from any confrontation with demonstrators calling out what they described as complicity in the actions of the Israeli military.
Inside the theatre, Technion UK chairman Paul Charney thanked the venue and the neighbouring Pullman Hotel, which owns it, for hosting the event despite external pressure to cancel.
Proceeds from the evening were directed to Technion’s campus security and student support fund.
