Dearborn attorney Amir Makled, who was just nominated by Michigan Democrats to serve on the University of Michigan’s governing body, provides a case study in corporate media dishonesty and anti-Israel bias.
Earlier this month, Makled was featured on MS Now, NPR, and other media outlets as an innocent victim of the Trump administration’s disregard for the civil rights of American citizens. While returning from a family vacation in the Dominican Republic, he was detained by the Tactical Terrorism Response Team of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The media amplified Makled’s claim that he was targeted because he represented a pro-Hamas protester who was arrested on criminal charges at a protest on the University of Michigan’s campus.
What the coverage left out
What that coverage left out is that Makled months earlier had publicly praised a former Hezbollah leader —an omission that goes a long way toward explaining why he was detained in the first place. Praising figures from a U.S.-designated terrorist organization and then acting surprised when a counterterrorism unit stops you isn’t a civil liberties mystery. It’s what happens when someone tries to pretend their own public record doesn’t exist.
Public record
In June and July of last year, Makled retweeted several posts publicly praising members of Hezbollah. His posts included referring to Hezbollah’s former leader, Hassan Nasrallah—who was killed by Israeli airstrikes in September 2024—as a “martyr.” These weren’t ambiguous statements.
Makled has since deleted the posts, but they were retrieved and republished by the Detroit News.
Not abstract in Michigan
Makled’s Democratic nomination comes just weeks after a suburban Detroit synagogue narrowly escaped a massacre by an attacker the FBI said was inspired by Hezbollah ideology. That context matters. Hezbollah isn’t an abstract political cause in Michigan—it has already inspired real-world violence. And Makled has publicly praised figures from that same organization.
The attacker, Ayman Ghazali, a 41-year-old Dearborn Heights man, had been consuming online Hezbollah anti-U.S. and anti-Israel material long before his two brothers—one identified by Israel as a Hezbollah commander—were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon in early March.
Referring to Ghazali losing relatives in that strike, Jennifer Runyan, head of the Detroit FBI, said, “It still is almost immaterial because it’s a terrorist attack… against people who had nothing to do with the death of his family. It was a targeted attack against the Jewish community here in Michigan.”
For those who argue that being anti-Israel isn’t tantamount to being antisemitic, there’s this: Makled also publicly reposted antisemitic content from far-right influencer Candace Owens, amplifying rhetoric that described Israelis as “demons” and Israel as “demonic” and defined by “bloodlust.”
The deleted posts also included photos and videos of a decimated Gaza used to justify Iranian missile strikes against Israeli civilians.
Owens, in 2024, was named “Antisemite of the Year” by the U.S.-based advocacy group StopAntisemitism—an award she openly embraced. The 2023 recipient was Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib. Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar received the distinction in 2019.
What actually happened at U-M
As for Makled’s University of Michigan client, whom he reportedly represented pro bono, the corporate media framed her and others who were arrested as simply exercising their First Amendment rights to publicly express support for Hamas, which the U.S. State Department has also designated a terrorist organization.
In fact, the criminal charges were brought by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and related to pro-Hamas encampments erected in April 2024 that the fire marshal declared dangerously unsafe.
“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 to fire and inescapable for any occupants in the event of one. If a fire were to occur within this encampment, the human casualty rate would be catastrophic,” the fire marshal warned.
As reported by Seth Mandel in Commentary, the encampment eventually included 60 tents, a generator, various electrical devices, and rope stretched along a makeshift chicken-wire fence. Protesters also reportedly disabled a nearby fire hydrant.
After the encampment refused to address these safety violations, police moved in to clear it. Protesters threw furniture at officers, and several turned violent. Several protesters were charged with misdemeanor trespassing; seven were charged with felonies for obstructing or resisting police.
Makled filed a motion to disqualify Nessel’s office on the grounds that she was biased—a claim widely understood as a reference to the attorney general’s religion. Nessel is Jewish, the first ever elected to serve as Michigan attorney general.
“This was a case of selective prosecution and rooted in bias, not in public safety issues,” Makled declared.
Rashida Tlaib piled on, demanding that Nessel recuse herself. She never established the nature of the alleged bias, but the implication was clear: the Attorney General’s religion was being used to question her legitimacy.
“We’ve [demonstrated] for climate, the immigrant-rights movement, for Black lives, and even around issues of injustice among water shutoffs,” Tlaib said. “But it seems that the Attorney General decided if the issue was Palestine, she was going to treat it differently, and that alone speaks volumes about possible biases within the agency she runs.”
The pressure worked. Nessel dropped the charges after the judge hearing the case, Cedric Simpson, considered granting a hearing to determine her suitability to proceed.
Nessel could have recused herself and assigned the case to a deputy, but it’s unclear that Assistant Attorney General Zena Ozeir would have pursued it. Ozeir, while still employed in Michigan’s AG office, posted an Instagram meme that read, “f— America, f— anyone who shares … Zionist propaganda.”
In January, while still listed as an assistant attorney general, Ozeir appeared as a panelist at an event calling for the release of the “Holy Land 5”—individuals convicted of funneling millions of dollars to Hamas. Following an outcry, a spokesperson for Michigan’s AG office said Ozeir was “no longer employed” by the state, though they declined to say why. Ozeir’s LinkedIn profile still lists her as an assistant attorney general.
Where the line was—and wasn’t
On Friday, just two days before the Democratic Party’s nomination convention, The Guardian, a far-left publication, reported that Acker appeared to have made obscene sexual comments about a Democratic strategist and lewd remarks about a female University of Michigan student in Slack messages.
Acker denied the allegations. When asked about the messages by The Detroit News, he called them “ridiculous” and “fake.” His attorney, Ethan Holtz, later said Acker “has never been on Slack” and argued that the messages contained elements that appeared to be “doctored.”
The Guardian’s reporter, Tom Perkins, said he spoke with six people who insisted the messages were authentic.
Acker had been endorsed by Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, U.S. Senate candidate Mallory McMorrow, and several major unions.
The Democratic Party’s endorsement came in the wake of the Michigan arm of the powerful SEIU labor union rescinding its endorsement of Makled, citing his deleted social media posts praising Hezbollah.
“This decision follows new information that was not available at the time our endorsement was made,” the union said in a statement. “As an organization, we hold our endorsed candidates to a high standard and expect alignment with our values and the interests of our members.”
The SEIU is hardly a champion of Israel, yet even it drew a clear line at praising Hezbollah. Many local SEIU “Palestine Caucuses” use language that frames Israel as an “apartheid state” and explicitly support the campus encampments that targeted the University of Michigan. The union was also closely aligned with former Michigan Rep. Andy Levin, who previously declared Tlaib his “comrade” and denied she was antisemitic.
Yet where the SEIU saw a red line, other power brokers saw an opportunity. Makled secured endorsements from several of U-M’s graduate unions and the United Auto Workers (UAW)—the same union that was the first to endorse the radical mayoral candidacy of Zohran Mamdani in New York City.
The University of Michigan was a hotbed of campus antisemitism long before it became fashionable. In January 2023, protesters marched around the Ann Arbor campus screaming into bullhorns and waving Palestinian flags, chanting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!”—a chant widely understood as calling for the elimination of Israel.
The university was later placed on a list of 60 higher education institutions investigated or monitored for potential violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, according to a U.S. Department of Education press release. The violations relate to antisemitic harassment and discrimination; U-M was the only Michigan school on the list.
U-M was also at the forefront of DEI implementation. A survey released in late 2022 and cited by the New York Times found that students and faculty reported a less positive campus climate than at the program’s start and a decreased sense of belonging. Students were less likely to interact with people of different races, religions, or political views—the very engagement DEI programs are supposed to foster.
Underscoring those findings, U-M’s Black Student Union resigned from the anti-Zionist student group Tahrir Coalition two years ago, citing “pervasive” anti-Black discrimination fostered by its mostly Arab and Middle Eastern leadership.
Meanwhile, U-M’s professional schools appear to be slipping.
Michigan Medicine, the university’s once nationally respected teaching hospital, now has a “B” safety rating from Leapfrog, a nonprofit whose bi-yearly reports are closely followed by hospitals that receive “A” grades—as Michigan Medicine once did consistently.
U-M’s law school ranked No. 9 in the latest U.S. News report after consistently ranking No. 8. By contrast, Detroit’s Wayne State University ranked No. 62 in the 2026 rankings, up 38 places since 2017, and No. 25 in part-time programs—ahead of the University of Michigan.
Michigan voters must still weigh in this November, but placing Makled on the ballot instead of Acker makes clear that the Democratic Party does not view praise for Hezbollah figures or the amplification of antisemitic rhetoric as disqualifying.
By contrast, the Michigan Republican nominees to serve as U-M Regents have strong Jewish identities and openly support Israel.