Democrats and the corporate media, when it suits their purposes, are quick to warn Jews about historical parallels to Hitler and the rise of Nazism in Germany, which led to the slaughter of six million Jews. These warnings often involve the actions of Donald Trump and, increasingly, Elon Musk, whose engagement with antisemitic posts on his X social media platform is frequently cited. Doug Emhoff, Kamala Harris’s spouse, used a 2023 visit to Auschwitz to denounce what he called the “epidemic of hate facing our country.”
We all know whom Emhoff was referring to—especially since he warned that Donald Trump was no friend of the Jewish people:
“If it suited his selfish interests, Trump would turn his back on Israel and the Jewish people on a dime. He would do it whenever antisemitism rears its ugly head in this country,” Emhoff said just days before the presidential election. “We should never have to wonder where our government stands.”
Yet Emhoff, his fellow Democrats, and their media allies have been largely silent about an incident in Michigan that is eerily reminiscent of Germany’s pre-Holocaust era. According to the Holocaust Encyclopedia, in the section titled “Law and Justice in the Third Reich,” after the Nazis rose to power in 1933, the German legal system was reshaped to align with their ideology:
All professional associations involved with the administration of justice were merged into the National Socialist League of German Jurists… In April 1933, Hitler passed one of the earliest antisemitic laws, purging Jewish and also Socialist judges, lawyers, and other court officers from their professions.
In Michigan, Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel, now in her second term and the first Jewish person to hold that office, admitted last week that attacks questioning her legal objectivity—because she is Jewish—ultimately led her to drop charges against seven anti-Israel protesters at the University of Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus, a university long criticized as a hotbed of antisemitism even before the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks.
Speaking at a town hall on hate crimes and extremism in the Detroit suburb of West Bloomfield, Nessel said she was influenced by criticism from Rep. Rashida Tlaib and others who sought to disqualify her from the case, arguing that her Jewish identity made her biased against pro-Palestinian activists.
Instead of assessing whether probable cause existed to move forward, Nessel said Judge Cedric Simpson focused on motions to disqualify Nessel and repeatedly delayed the proceedings. The tipping point, Nessel said, came when Simpson was preparing to investigate the Jewish Community Relations Council of Ann Arbor after it issued a statement defending Nessel against religious bias accusations. The letter, inadvertently sent to a court administrator, was logged as an official court document.
“So now we’re at a point where the Jewish attorney general is being investigated, the Jewish Federation is being investigated—everyone’s on trial except the defendants,” Nessel said at the town hall, in comments recorded by journalist Brendan Gutenschwager.
It is unclear whether Nessel knew she was being recorded.
The Charges
The charges brought by Nessel’s office stemmed from pro-Hamas encampments erected in April 2024 on the Diag, the main green space on U-M’s Ann Arbor campus. After several weeks, the fire marshal deemed the encampments 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.”
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 safety violations, police moved in to clear it. Protesters threw furniture at officers, and several became violent. In total, several protesters were charged with misdemeanor trespassing; seven were charged with felonies for obstructing or resisting police.
Tlaib’s Accusation
Rep. Rashida Tlaib—named 2023’s “Antisemite of the Year” by a watchdog group—led calls for Nessel’s recusal. Tlaib argued that Nessel’s decisions showed bias against Palestinian solidarity activists:
“We’ve demonstrated for climate, the immigrant-rights movement, for Black lives, and even around issues of injustice like 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.”
As noted by Mandel, Tlaib echoed Donald Trump’s infamous 2016 assertion that Judge Gonzalo Curiel couldn’t be impartial because of his Mexican heritage—a claim that drew bipartisan condemnation. Sen. Elizabeth Warren responded:
“No, Donald—what you are doing is a total disgrace… Race-baiting a judge who spent years defending America from murderers and drug traffickers simply because his family came from somewhere else. You, Donald Trump, are a total disgrace.”
Tlaib has frequently denounced what she considers discriminatory rhetoric from Trump. In 2019, she responded to his tweet suggesting she and other congresswomen of color should “go back” to their countries, stating:
“Want a response to a lawless & complete failure of a President? He is the crisis. His dangerous ideology is the crisis. He needs to be impeached.”
Nessel has had to confront anti-Israel rhetoric even within her own office. In June of last year, the Detroit News reported on an Instagram meme posted by Assistant Attorney General Zena Ozeir denouncing Zionism.
The meme shared by Ozeir read:
“Accounts of the most abhorrent violence against Palestinian women by the genocidal forces. Every accusation made by the Zionist entity is an admission. F— them, F— America, F— genocide apologists. F— anyone who peddles Zionist propaganda or gives any legitimacy to their criminal enterprise of a ‘country.’”
Below the meme, Ozeir added:
“No analysis. Just rage.”
Nessel’s office issued the following statement:
“Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. The social media post is inappropriate and disturbing. We are reviewing and will respond accordingly.”
According to her LinkedIn profile, Ozeir is listed as an Assistant Attorney General for the state of Michigan, but she is no longer active on the site—suggesting the profile may simply not have been updated.
Legal and Political Fallout
Dana Nessel’s legal record is uninspiring. I’ve previously criticized her for failing to investigate serious complaints involving the Beaumont Health system under former CEO John Fox. These included a hospital closure during the height of the pandemic and a patient’s death due to anesthesia complications. Despite warnings from a prominent lawyer, Nessel allowed a merger with Grand Rapids-based Spectrum Health to proceed without public scrutiny or guarantees to protect Beaumont’s $4 billion reserve.
Nessel arguably helped make her Jewish identity a point of contention. Her official AG bio once noted she was the first Jewish and lesbian person elected to the role—something that would invariably draw attention in politically sensitive cases.
It was also deeply regrettable that Nessel blamed the Detroit-area Jewish Federation’s statement for influencing her decision to drop the charges. As Seth Mandel rightly noted, this was a misplaced rebuke:
“Nessel blamed the letter’s ‘impropriety’ at least in part for her decision to drop the charges… This was an inexcusable attempt to throw the JCRC under the bus. The letter was in response to, not the impetus for, nearly a year of accusations of bias simply because Nessel is Jewish. Even if the letter ended up in the wrong hands, any reasonable observer would not see it as disqualifying.”
By denouncing her defenders instead of owning her decision, Nessel not only isolated herself but also signaled to other Jewish groups that defending her could backfire. Dropping the charges under pressure from a looming bias hearing arguably rewarded religious bigotry—and set a precedent that Jewish officials may be silenced through identity-based challenges.
It’s one thing that Nessel couldn’t take the political heat. But her greater failure was burning the very people trying to shield her from the fire.
Here is the supposedly contentious statement the Jewish Community Relations Council of Ann Arbor issued in defense of Nessel:
