Dead Peonies, Deader Journalism
The story, minus the biggest detail
1. Killing Eden
At the peak of their bloom, thousands of peony flowers at the “University of Michigan's W.E. Upjohn Peony Garden” were mutilated in an act of intentional destruction. The flowers laid near a hospital, comforting people of all ages. Some flowers were hundreds of years old. Community members were shocked by the vandalism. I was not.
These weren’t just any flowers; they were a fixture of Ann Arbor tradition. It was a student-led, volunteer project intended to brighten campus. For decades, families, students, patients, and survivors of grief and illness walked among those blossoms as a form of healing. They turned to nature for relief like so many of us do.
On Instagram, one mother recalled how, after her child was born with a life-threatening condition, a nurse at nearby Mott Hospital recommended she find peace among the peonies. It became an annual ritual for her. “I go back here every year… for a sense of peace.”
User arnica_bear harasses a bereaved mother for Palestine with some wild lie about how a University is invested in bombs.
The peony garden wasn’t political. It wasn’t a statement. To get to the point, it wasn’t remotely connected to Jews or Israel. The garden was just another easy target for the “Free Palestine” lunatics. It was something gentle, neutral and life-affirming, aka the antithesis of their death cult movement. The violence engaged in the name of “Free Palestine” is the type frequently called out by Realign for Palestine and those actually involved with the conflict, rather than the Western virtue signalers who try desperately to turn everything into their narcissistic views.
Nothing is sacred for those praising martyrdom, while feigning interest in peace.
Another commenter, trying to express their grief, shared a heartfelt story:
“My son would sit there every day. It was the only place on campus where he felt calm after everything that happened. Whoever did this didn’t just destroy flowers — they took away something sacred.”
And what was the response from the death cult?
Mockery. Derision. A complete dismissal of mourning, which I am used to by now. In the eyes of the vandals– both the lunatics who destroy Eden and those who support it– grief itself is offensive if it doesn’t align with their ideology. They only have space for their cause de jour… well, unless you look at their own Instagram or Facebooks and see they are extreme hypocrites.
Another Free Palestine response to the mother talking about how much the garden meant to her
While people voiced their concerns with mindless vandalism, accounts like @tahrirumich, @_mariaacortess, and @safexmich didn’t distance themselves from it. They celebrated the destruction. Student Gage Larson (https://www.facebook.com/gagealarson/ ), whose own profiles on IG and Facebook have zero mention of the war, wrote, “I stand with this act of resilience… This garden is a flagrant symbol of colonialism… From the river…” No chance of shame. No chance the public would call out this lunatic.
So let’s be clear: we definitely know which group did it. They left hundreds of printed flyers at the scene. Flyers which could be traced via fingerprints, printer dots and other identifiers. We know who celebrated online too. But the university and police? Still pretending this is a mystery.
The day after the incident, I decided to do my home ‘journalism’ assignment and found roughly 75% of the stories AND bylines ignored any mention of Palestine Supporters being behind the vandalism. This happened despite the “random notes” left behind.
2. Journalism At Its Worst
Little news coverage followed the incident. Those doing the coverage did not investigate at all. Instead, we saw yet again how extremists are coddled by the biased media.
Nearly 75% of articles about the garden’s destruction failed to mention that the perpetrators were Palestine supporters. Instead, headlines reduced it to generic vandalism. Some even claimed no known motive, despite flyers making the motive explicit.
The vandals’ flyers included, “Since October 7th, 2023, over 50,000 Palestinians have been killed… as you stroll around in the arboretum… Resist imperialism… Wear a keffiyeh... Replace your U.S. flag with a Palestinian flag…” For those unaware, Oct 7 is the day Gaza’s militants began a war they are losing. The keffiyeh is the Iraqi symbol appropriated by the PLO, long banned in Gaza, used by “Free Palestine” to hide their ugly faces from consequences.
The University of Michigan’s official statement was no better — a vague, noncommittal gesture urging "civility," as if two sides had fought. In reality, only one group perpetually harasses those deemed “non-believers.” While “all lives matter” was deemed an unacceptable response to BLM protests just a few years ago, Jews know now more than ever that any mention of antisemitism, any attack on us, is immediately followed up with excuses for the violence perpetrated.
This was one-sided destruction of a space everyone could enjoy. It had no benefit. But as many Palestine Supporters preach, “You don’t choose how we resist.” Yes, I listen to them say that. Of course we don’t choose how they resist! Do you think we’d have picked vandalism? Or all the rape they chose to do in the name of Palestine Support? (Ex 1: Two arab teens raped a 12 year old Jewish girl and explicitly said it was ‘revenge for Palestine.’) (Ex 2: The UN even admits to substantial evidence of mass rape on Oct 7, including rape of dead bodies.)
Yes, “intifada” and “death to America” includes ecocide. It always has. Intifada is not just the targetting attacks of working class via bus bombings and stabbings. Intifada is also Hamas calling their followers to “burn all they can,” including the nature of a land they don’t respect. Nobody else could connect calls to destroy nature leading to the Hamas supporters engaging in ecocide? Nobody?
Real journalism would identify motive, connect dots, and ask questions. Instead we got passive voice, euphemisms, and deflection. A week after the incident, there was no follow up. Not one journalist looked into the likely suspects behind the attack, including groups recently raided by the FBI, groups praising violence out in the open. Not one journalist bothered to ask the various lunatics praising the vandalism on or offline, “Did you do this?”
By the way, I’m not accusing the people shown below as having partook in the vandalism. I’m saying it seems beyond reason to ask these individuals who did partake. It’s astonishing no journalists have, nor the police, nor the school. Common sense was lost long ago.
Nothing is sacred anymore. But some of us are still listening, taking notes, and considering how to rebuild.
3. A Pattern of Violence and Praise
This relatively minor news event isn’t happening in a vacuum. In the last month:
Two embassy workers were murdered in Washington, D.C. The domestic terrorist involved shot an unarmed woman a dozen times in the back, was then comforted by confused Jews for fifteen minutes, before going outside to gleefully cheer his approved “Free Palestine” slogan. He had no shame over his actions, encouraged by rotten souls.
A Holocaust survivor and Jewish children were firebombed in Boulder, Colorado. The domestic terrorist also cheered his approved “Free Palestine” slogan during arrest, showing complete lack of empathy for his victims. The internet’s response was worse.
Last weekend, three Jewish owned businesses were vandalized by Palestine Supporters: Avi’s Auto Repair Shop was set ablaze, ASAP Restoration’s windows were broken and Chessed Center was vandalized with graffiti.
A recent post from Tahrir Michigan, an umbrella for JVP, SJP and other “anti-zionist groups” banned from University of Michigan, called the dismissal of cases against their members (domestic terrorists) a “profound victory against Zionism,” complete with group photos. They treat getting off for violence as if they’d just won a prize. Their “profound victory” is simply not having consequences for their actions. This is what extremists and losers call a win.
If these bigots call not going to prison a win, just imagine how proud of ecocide they are. They destroyed a garden and got away with it. Yes, the targeted destruction of a living space to send a political message is righteous in their eyes. Historically, ecocide meant torching oil fields or salting the land to starve enemies. It is about wiping out a place of peace, not because of what it did, but because of what it represented: normalcy, healing, growth. They do not love the Earth nearly as much as they hate “Jewish Zionists.”
Tahrir Michigan’s brain child “JVP Michigan” had a recent post with a telling comment by IG user @peace4allispeaceofmind , “As Jewish Zionists… I can do mass killings… bribing & usury…”
Usury is a word JVP fans deliberately used because such dog whistles were normalized. JVP Michigan fans Mirabelle (@rainfallingforever) and Anita (@anitaisveryhardworking), who are not Jewish nor voices for peace, inflate JVP numbers and liked comments about Jews killing, stealing and usurping, while calling it activism. The JVP page mods will never call out such blatant antisemitism precisely because they are neither Jewish or for peace. At best, JVP’s Jew hating mods will hold a meeting to ask members to stick to approved slogans only.
I could not find one “Free Palestine” supporter who condemned the ecocide with “not in our name” or other dismissal.
I could not find one “Free Palestine” supporter whocondemned talking about “Jewish Zionist usurping”, Der Stürmer-level rhetoric.
I could not find one “Free Palestine” supporter with a Jewish name or Jewish identifiers within multiple “JVP” post comments.
This wasn’t collateral damage. It was a message: even your gardens aren’t safe.
4. Nothing is Sacred
You don’t need Sherlock Holmes or a Pulitzer to figure this out. The vandals left flyers. Their supporters’ names and faces are on Instagram. They bragged about their actions.
A real journalist would ask Tessa Krajewski, “Were you involved?” Krajewski, an art student with 15 followers on her art page, has a clear motive. Failed artists are known to scapegoat Jews. Maybe she even resents having “jew” in her name. Krajewski has a public post of her “bae” in the Matthaei Botanical Gardens, the victim of this vandalism, directly followed by her first public “Free Palestine” post, 6+ months into the war. In this post she ironically fashions the keffiyeh with a septum piercing, writing, “WE WILL RESIST. DONT BELIEVE THE ZIONIST PROPAGANDA. THERE IS ONLY ONE SOLUTION INTIFADA REVOLUTION #freepalestine” Destroying things is fashionable to some.
Or ask Rayne Klar, “Who did this vandalism.” They (NB) boasted about how proud of vandalism they were. Ask their husband, Jacob Piccard, who has to deal with this lunatic, “Are you OK with your wife justifying senseless vandalism with, ‘The people martyred in war will not return.’?”
You did it. You ended capitalism, Naomi Burton! This comment did it. [/s]
Ask Naomi Burton (@naomiaburton , co-founder of “Means TV” alongside Nick Hayes) , who gave the approved “Free Palestine” response to the IG Post about the vandalism. No more words needed. Burton describes herself as “anti-capitalist,” but rather than encouraging people to toil the fields, like Emma Goldman, she chants to destroy them.
Ask Matthew Jackson, who also endorsed the attack. Ask Akshita Verma (@shita_v), who complains that only the ecocide from war matters, and complains about “criminalization of protesters” in her next sentence. Ask Andrew Curran ( andrew.c.curran@gmail.com @crito_curran ) who responded to a hurt mother with, “Your children aren't the only children that matter.” Ask Meg Lynn (@realmeglynn , https://www.facebook.com/meg.l.dearth/ ) who “read up on {the vandalism} further” and decided the context of destroying flowers “heavily matters.”
I guarantee one of these morons knows the truth about who committed ecocide for Palestine. I can also guarantee not even one of them can explain their hyper obsession with Gaza over objectively bigger wars in Ukraine, Myanmar, Sudan, Congo and Kurdistan.
So why haven’t journalists tracked them down?
Why hasn’t the university held them accountable?
Why is everyone pretending this is just a landscaping issue?
Because admitting the truth means confronting an uncomfortable reality:
This wasn’t about Gaza. This wasn’t about politics. This was a test.
They pulled up flowers to see if anyone would push back.
No one did. No one did a real investigation.
Next time, it won’t be peonies.
