The National Review wrote in depth about HLLI’s civil lawsuit against anti-Israel activists who blockaded the entrance to O’Hare International Airport on April 15, 2024.
Lawyers at the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute announced a class action lawsuit this week against the activists who organized a pro-Hamas traffic blockade in front of Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, a suit lawyers hope will impose justifiable consequences on “anti-American” activists.
Multiple activist groups — including Jewish Voice for Peace, the Chicago Dissenters, the Tides Center, and National Students for Justice in Palestine — organized the April 15 blockade as part of a nationwide “A15 Action” movement to disrupt civilian movement and highlight what they call Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza. The specific demonstration in Chicago was in protest of the airline manufacturing company, Boeing, which sells military equipment to Israel. Masked blockaders cut off access to the airport for multiple hours, handcuffing themselves together to prevent the flow of traffic.
“Once upon a time, we had a criminal justice system that would act to prevent these sorts of disruptive behaviors,” HLLI co-founder and Director of Litigation Ted Frank told National Review. “And over the last half decade or so, we have several prosecutors that just don’t believe in prosecuting for these sorts of crimes, and we now have a generation of activists that think that they can do this sort of stuff with impunity.”
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Activists believed they could break the law with impunity, Frank said, and even bragged about the blockade on social media, which is how the firm could identify so many of them. Five days before the coordinated effort, activists preemptively established a bail fund to “to support community members who are criminalized in the U.S. for their solidarity with Palestine.” The Tides Center, a George Soros-backed progressive organization that has donated millions to support anti-Israel initiatives, helped activists advertise and manage the bail fund, according to the lawsuit.
“So far, there haven’t been consequences, and we’re seeing, I think, socially problematic activity, and criminal activity that punishes citizen Americans,” Frank said. “And many of these activists are just simply anti-American, rather than actually hoping to change anything in the political system.”
Read more at the National Review.