Professional-Palestinian protesters try to dam a counter-protester with an Israeli flag at UCLA in March. Photograph by Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Instances by way of Getty Photographs
By Hannah Feuer
August 6, 2025
A federal choose has weighed in on whether or not an alleged assault involving the Israeli flag is antisemitic.
Decide Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, dominated Monday that concentrating on the Star of David on an Israeli flag is “racially motivated,” in a choice the plaintiff’s attorneys celebrated as clarifying below the regulation that antisemitic violence contains “assaults on Jews for supporting Israel.”
“The Star of David—emblazoned upon the Israeli flag—symbolizes the Jewish race,” McFadden wrote in his decision, including that “concentrating on the Star of David is as racially motivated as “the extremely offensive racial slur, ‘n—.’”
The ruling will not be the primary time a choose has implied that Judaism is inseparable from Zionism. Final August, a federal choose issued a preliminary injunction ordering the College of California Los Angeles to offer equal entry to Jewish college students whose paths to courses have been blocked by pro-Palestinian encampments that they couldn’t cross with out being requested to denounce Zionism. The choose argued that the scholars being requested to disavow Israel was equal to being requested to “denounce their religion.”
However McFadden’s ruling is “essentially the most strongly worded” opinion to this point that implies anti-Zionism is perhaps thought of a type of antisemitism, Matthew Mainen, a lawyer for the plaintiff, wrote in a press release.
“Within the sense that it was so forceful, it was novel,” Mainen wrote. “We anticipate likeminded judges on this problem to look to Decide McFadden’s ruling as their lodestar within the coming years.”
McFadden’s ruling revolved round an incident final fall at a Code Pink protest for Palestinian rights in Washington, D.C. Kimmara Sumrall, a pro-Israel counterprotester, says Janine Ali, a pro-Palestinian protester, grabbed an Israeli flag that Sumrall was carrying tied round her neck, choking her.
Ali denies that she grabbed the flag, and he or she was discovered not responsible of assault in a felony trial in Could. Sumrall then filed a grievance searching for a civil stay-away order. Decide McFadden discovered Ali “probably dedicated the battery,” noting the decrease commonplace of proof in a civil case and testimony from a Capitol Police officer who witnessed the incident.
Frank Panopoulos, a lawyer for Ali, didn’t reply to the Ahead’s request for remark.
In courtroom, attorneys for Ali argued that “the Israeli flag represents the state of Israel somewhat than the Jewish race, so her motion is merely anti-Israel, not antisemitic,” McFadden famous in his resolution.
However McFadden rejected that argument, writing that Ali had no motive to imagine Sumrall was affiliated with the Israeli authorities.
“It’s fairly a stretch to say that yanking on a flag tied round somebody’s neck is an objection to state insurance policies,” McFadden wrote, citing Sumrall’s attorneys who argued that “if yanking on a flag emblazoned with the Star of David tied round a Jewish individual’s neck at a pro-Israel protest will not be discrimination, ‘I don’t know what’s.’”
Mark Goldfeder, director of the Nationwide Jewish Advocacy Heart, which represented Sumrall in courtroom, known as the ruling a “watershed moment.”
The ruling is “a crystal-clear instance of ethical readability and customary sense that must be adopted by different courts in every single place,” he wrote. “In fact the Jewish star represents the Jewish race — it did so in Nazi Germany when our enemies compelled us to put on it.”
McFadden granted the stay-away order in opposition to Ali, requiring that Ali not try to contact Sumrall and keep at the very least three yards away from her.
