The U.S. Department of Justice and FBI are investigating protests at Monday’s Turning Point USA event at UC Berkeley. The protests featured anti-Zionist activists and resulted in several arrests and at least one reported hospitalization. U.S. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon visited the university on Thursday as part of the investigation.
Masked demonstrators, some donning kaffiyehs, clashed with police in riot gear outside the event inside Zellerbach Hall that featured speeches, a panel discussion and an audience Q&A. It was the final stop on the conservative organization’s “American Comeback Tour,” and more than 900 people attended, according to the university chancellor’s office.
The event took place two months to the day after the assassination of TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk, who was shot while addressing students at a Utah university.
Protesters criticized Turning Point’s conservative stance, from the organization’s views on immigration policy to its approach on LGBTQ issues.
Also animating some of the protesters was intense opposition to Zionism and Israel. Kirk, an evangelical Christian, was a staunch supporter of Israel whom Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu honored as a “true friend” following his murder.
Anti-Zionists in and around Berkeley helped organize the protest. Ahead of the event, flyers that read “Fascists, Zionists, Out!” appeared across the UC Berkeley campus with a link to a Signal group chat where students could find information about the planned protest. Protest efforts were organized in part by local student chapters of Jewish Voice for Peace, Students Organizing for Liberation, Koreans for Decolonization and Young Democratic Socialists of America, but organizers also included non-student groups like SF Bay Activists. The DOJ alleges involvement by antifa, a protest movement that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has called “an existential threat to our nation.”
Protesters yelled chants including “no Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA,” “free Palestine,” and “death to America.”
Police officers from multiple agencies were present. According to CalMatters, they included the UC Police Department, private security and law enforcement from Alameda County and San Francisco.
The protest saw scattered incidents of serious violence, even as most of the protesters demonstrated peacefully.
UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof told J. that an unidentified protester threw a glass bottle at an attendee of the TPUSA event, hospitalizing the man, who was struck in the head.
Grisly images of a bloodied attendee and physical fights between protesters and police quickly circulated online, prompting reaction from government officials on social media.
“The violent riots at UC Berkeley last night are under full investigation by the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force,” Bondi wrote on X. “We will continue to spare no expense unmasking all who commit and orchestrate acts of political violence.”
The Daily Californian, UC Berkeley’s student newspaper, described the event as “a chaotic night of largely peaceful protests and scattered disputes between protesters and police” and reported that the “majority of the approximately 300 demonstrators protesting the event throughout the day were nonviolent.”
Mogulof attributed the violence to “outside agitators” and said the university is conducting its own probe and will work with law enforcement.
“The university is conducting a full investigation and intends to fully cooperate with and assist any federal investigations and the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force to identify the outside agitators responsible for attempting to disrupt last night’s TPUSA event,” Mogulof said in a statement.
Jewish UC Berkeley student Naomi Toubian was at Zellerbach Hall Plaza on Monday night to observe the protesters and said she found herself on the receiving end of an antisemitic taunt.
While she was having a conversation with one of the protesters, another “turned to me and said, ‘Just go back to your country,’” Toubian told J.
She was shocked. “You’re gonna tell me to go back to my country when you’re telling me that Israel does not belong to the Jews?” she said. “The whole premise was genuinely insane to me.”
Protesters came to the plaza holding signs with varying messages, all criticizing Turning Point USA or Kirk directly.
Some charged Kirk with being antisemitic. On an Oct. 26, 2023, episode of his show, Kirk took aim at “Jewish donors” for contributing to left-wing causes. “Jewish donors have been the No. 1 funding mechanism of radical open border neoliberal quasi-Marxist policies,” he said in an echo of the so-called “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, which falsely contends that Jews are orchestrating mass immigration into white-majority countries.
One sign that Toubian saw read: “How is protesting [for] Palestine antisemitic, but when Kirk says ‘Jewish money ruins American culture’ his organization is welcomed???’”
Jacob Moler, an Israeli American senior at Berkeley who attended the Turning Point event, criticized the protesters’ tactics and emphasized the need for genuine debate and dialogue on campus. He said he and his roommate attended the event inside Zellerbach mostly out of curiosity. He found it surprising, he said, to see plenty of MAGA hats but few people he identified as fellow Cal students.
Moler, who describes himself as “more on the conservative side,” also noted the overtly religious tone of the event. It featured multiple prayers and discussions he felt veered into Christian nationalism that excluded Jews like him and people of other religions.
“It’s not about conservatism versus liberalism. It’s about their beliefs,” he said. As a conservative, he added, “It’s something I actually respect. It’s ‘God versus the godless people.’ It’s ‘good versus evil,’” he said. “But they made it a little too, as I would say, Christian radical.”