In California, a pro-Israel prosecutor is kicked off a pro-Hamas vandalism case

 by Andrea Widburg

In June 2024, over a dozen pro-Hamas activists are alleged to have broken into and vandalized the Stanford president’s office, including writing antisemitic slurs. The damage estimates ranged from $360,000 to $1,000,000. Santa Clara County’s DA filed charges against 12 of them.

 

Some defendants pleaded out, but five went to trial, which resulted in a mistrial. The DA’s office then did what DA’s offices often do: It sought to retry the case.

However, the twist here is that Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Kelley Paul, a Democrat and public defender before Gavin Newsom appointed her to the court, agreed to a defense motion to fire the entire prosecutor’s office because the District Attorney, Jeffrey Rosen, openly supports Israel. Thus, on his campaign website, Rosen said that he supports Israel and opposes antisemitism, and raised this case as an example of his fight against antisemitism.

According to the defense, this means that Rosen and his entire office are so biased that they cannot try any cases involving defendants hostile to Israel:

“DA Rosen is not entitled to continue to pursue a case where he falsely describes the prosecution of the defendants as part of his fight against antisemitism while attempting to raise campaign dollars off that false description,” Defense Attorney Avi Singh wrote in court documents.

It’s unclear from the article what “false description” Singh means. While it’s true that the defendants were not tried for specific hate crimes (a thought crime cause of action that is always unconstitutional), the reality is that their violently expressed support for Hamas is an invariable corollary to hatred for Israel, and hatred for Israel has yet to show itself as anything other than antisemitism.

But parsing words really doesn’t matter. From a legal perspective, the argument is ridiculous. Either the defendants committed acts consistent with a crime, or they did not. Certainly, there was enough material presented to the jury to warrant a mistrial rather than a not-guilty verdict.

Notably, there is no allegation that the original trial was tainted by any pro-Israel or philosemitic bias. As for his campaigning off the case, he’s not a judge who cannot show bias. He is the DA, which is always a political position, and he wouldn’t have brought the case if he didn’t believe in it.

Nevertheless, Judge Paul, a white leftist woman, put her stamp of approval on the claim that Jewish prosecutors cannot try cases against people who hate Jews:

While Paul reaffirmed Rosen’s right to free speech and noted passion for fighting antisemitism, she said “caution and care” must be taken when using active litigation for fundraising purposes.

The Stanford lawsuit is “not a hate-crime case,” and should not be characterized as a fight against antisemitism, Paul said.

Attorney General Rob Bonta, who helped represent the District Attorney’s Office, argued that defense attorneys did not prove Rosen’s guilt.

“DA Rosen neither vilified nor defamed defendants and/or their movement while fundraising and simultaneously prosecuting defendants,” Bonta wrote in court documents.

The court also agreed that Rosen’s behavior could have affected Deputy District Attorney Rob Baker’s treatment of the defendants as Baker was leading the prosecution’s case.

At times, he criticized the students’ motivations and at one point called the group “un-American.”

“The court finds a conflict of interest exists,” Paul said.

Now, it’s up to the State AG to decide whether to go forward with the case. And while AG Bonta did stand up for Rosen in this matter, there’s no reason to believe that the hard-left state AG will want to continue this fight. After all, his base is behind this type of vandalism.

Try imagining this scenario without it involving a Jewish DA on a case that involves Israel. Imagine, for example, Neo-Nazis trashing the Stanford president’s office and then being prosecuted by a black DA who has a political fundraising campaign page about his support for the black community, and mentions the case on that page. Or imagine fanatic anti-homosexual Christians committing vandalism, and then being prosecuted by a gay DA who has a campaign page that focuses heavily on his support for gay rights, while mentioning the case.

If you can’t get those images in your mind, that’s not a failure of your imagination. It’s because it would never happen, not even in the realm of imagination.

What we have here is a DA whose office brought charges against people who caused massive property damage. There are no allegations of any bias or unprofessionalism in the first trial. Nevertheless, the entire office is being dismissed because the DA supports Israel. This is absolutely disgraceful, and exactly what I would expect from a leftist judge in 2026 America.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/05/in_california_a_pro_israel_prosecutor_is_kicked_off_a_pro_hamas_vandalism_case.html