Abandon the Battlefield – The Story of Two Israeli War Resisters (Refuseniks)

By Michael Welch, March 28, 2025

Two young people, Einat Gerlitz and Tal Mitnick have refused their required service in the military, something all people in Israel …

The post Selected Articles: Abandon the Battlefield – The Story of Two Israeli War Resisters (Refuseniks) appeared first on Global Research.

The IDF issued urgent evacuation notices for a Hezbollah drone storage center in Beirut, warning it will be imminently targeted in retaliation for rocket attacks on a northern Israeli town earlier today.

Note how happy these guys are after the IDF performed an airstrike in Beirut Lebanon today

Why would anyone be happy for such a thing? pic.twitter.com/4N3mZJKGcV

— Documenting Israel (@DocumentIsrael) March 28, 2025

IDF Arabic Spokesman on the Beirut Strike:

Are you paying attention?
The strike. The fallout. The drone arsenal hidden in the heart of a civilian building.

Hezbollah clearly refuses to learn. The message was loud and clear—yet they still don’t get it. pic.twitter.com/ldccRprnTT

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) March 28, 2025

The post WATCH: IDF airstrike targets Beirut in first since November ceasefire appeared first on World Israel News.

Crushing this vile antisemitism is not equivalent to restricting academic freedom, which is the disingenuous complaint of Left-wing professors who pretend to value the First Amendment while advocating for the eradication of Israel and Jews.

By Mark Tapson, Frontpage Magazine

Columbia University, where student protesters in 1968 stormed and occupied many university buildings, forcing the resignation of the university’s president, is again at the center of the news for campus radicalism.

As FrontPage Mag has reported, Columbia grad student and green card-holding alien Mahmoud Khalil, spokesman for the pro-Hamas student group Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), has become what The New York Times called “the public face of protest against Israel” at Columbia.

In addition to participating in a takeover of the library at Columbia affiliate Barnard College, he has referred to the October 7 attacks as a “moral, military, and political victory” and asserted that CUAD is fighting for nothing less than the “total eradication of Western civilization.”

To the shock and outrage of Jew haters on the Left, the Trump administration stepped in where the complicit Biden administration never would have, and arrested this terrorism-fomenting alien with possible deportation to follow.

“This is an individual who organized group protests that not only disrupted college campus classes and harassed Jewish American students and made them feel unsafe on their own college campus, but also distributed pro-Hamas propaganda, flyers with the logo of Hamas,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at last week’s briefing.

“This administration is not going to tolerate individuals having the privilege of studying in our country and then siding with pro-terrorist organizations that have killed Americans.”

And that’s not all. Trump also threatened to cancel $400 million in federal research contracts and grants to Columbia unless the school tightened disciplinary procedures and asserted greater control over academic departments to stem antisemitism at the school, particularly in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

Last week Columbia caved – pledging, for example, that masked demonstrators must show identification when asked, that protests will generally not be allowed in academic buildings, and that several dozen public security officers will be empowered to make arrests.

On Sunday, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said on CNN’s State of the Union that the school was on the “right track”: “Columbia is demonstrating appropriate cooperation with the Trump administration’s requirements, and we look forward to a lasting resolution,” she wrote in a statement the following day.

“Columbia’s early steps are a positive sign, but they must continue to show that they are serious in their resolve to end antisemitism and protect all students and faculty on their campus through permanent and structural reform,” said Josh Gruenbaum, commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service.

But many radical professors objected. As classes at Columbia resumed Monday after spring break, about 50 professors chanting “Defend our research,” “Defend our teaching,” and “Defend our students” protested Columbia’s concessions outside the campus gates.

According to The New York Times, the professors declared they hoped to be the vanguard of a resistance movement among fellow academics.

“We need to stand up, all of us,” Michael Thaddeus, a Columbia math professor, told the crowd. “We need to organize, from the grass roots to the national level. If we lead, our leaders will follow.”

Stand up for what, exactly? Antisemitism? Hamas? Palestinian celebrations of the torture, gang rape, kidnapping, and slaughter of Israelis? Exactly what objection do these academics have to ending the violent intimidation of Jews on their campus?

“What is happening to Columbia now is what the erosion of democracy looks like,” fear-mongered Political Science professor Virginia Page Fortna.

“We’ve studied what’s happened to universities in authoritarianism,” warned Anya Schiffrin, a senior lecturer at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. “We’ve seen what happened in Spain under Franco, in Turkey, in India and in Hungary. It’s a mistake to think it won’t happen here.”

On the contrary, what won’t happen here on American campuses – thanks to the Trump administration – is proliferation of the murderous Jew hatred we have seen surging at universities in major Western cities worldwide in the wake of the October 7 attacks.

Crushing this vile antisemitism is not equivalent to restricting academic freedom, which is the disingenuous complaint of Left-wing professors who pretend to value the First Amendment while advocating for the eradication of Israel and Jews.

Columbia University has been a hotbed of Left-wing academic activism for many decades.

In Freedom Center founder David Horowitz’s 2006 book The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, nine of those 101 professors taught at Columbia – more than twice as many as at any other university named in the book.

Those professors were Lisa Anderson (Middle East Studies), Gil Anidjar (Comparative Literature), Nicholas De Genova (Anthropology), Manning Marable (Black History), Joseph Massad (Modern Arab Politics), Hamid Dabashi (Islamic Studies), Eric Foner (History), the late Todd Gitlin (Journalism), and Victor Navasky (former publisher of The Nation) – check out their linked profiles at Discover the Networks, the Freedom Center’s online encyclopedia of the Left.

Of those nine, De Genova is now at Princeton, and Marable, Gitlin, and Navasky have since passed away.

The others continue to spread their subversive influence at Columbia – some more openly than others. Joseph Massad, you may recall, publicly celebrated the October 7, 2023 Hamas massacre in Israel, calling it “astounding,” “awesome,” and “incredible.”

He teaches a Columbia course on Zionism, which is like having Mussolini teach a course on democracy.

Now Columbia’s surrender to Trump has lit a fire under other such activist professors at the school. Monday on WBUR’s Here and Now, Reinhold Martin, President of Columbia’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, asserted with the Left’s customary hyperbole that “We’re in New York in 2025 with echoes of Frankfurt and Berlin in 1933. That’s the context in which we need to understand this.”

No, the context Americans need to understand is that many of our most prestigious so-called institutions of higher learning are actively supporting terror organizations such as the Jew-hating jihadists of Hamas, meaning that Jewish and openly Zionist students are being discriminated against, if not literally terrorized on campus.

As Jihad Watch’s own Hugh Fitzgerald wrote,

I wonder what Joseph Massad, Rashid Khalidi, and Hamid Dabashi are now thinking. Their scandalous reign is over. The time when they could bully Jewish students in the classroom, or assign a skewed reading list brimming with ani-Israel bias, or lecture in their classroom about the sheer wonderfulness of Hamas and the monstrousness of the Jewish state, and hire only faculty who, like them, were relentlessly anti-Israel, are now over. Fun while it lasted for these professorial bullies, but for them, the days of wine and roses are definitely over. Now the grownups are being put in charge of Middle East Studies at Columbia.

Indeed. As Bob Dylan once sang in a different context, the times they are a-changin’.

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Turkey’s state-controlled media and an extensive propaganda apparatus work relentlessly to spread false narratives, emphasize negative portrayals of the US and Israel and suppress their positive contributions to global politics.

By Abdullah Bozkurt, Middle East Forum

A recent poll highlights the extent of damage inflicted on Turkish public perception by the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which has systematically fueled anti-US and anti-Israel sentiment to consolidate power, distract from domestic crises and justify repressive policies.

A survey conducted earlier this month by the Turkish ASAL Araştırma ve Danışmanlık polling company found that 84 percent of Turks view Israel as an enemy, followed by 75 percent who feel the same about the United States, while only seven percent and 14 percent, respectively, see these nations as friendly, with the remainder expressing no opinion.

These figures reveal the profound impact of Erdogan’s decade-long anti-US and anti-Israel campaigns, which his government has actively promoted, with the president himself leading the charge through frequent baseless accusations against both countries.

The peak of this campaign against Israel came when Erdogan labeled it a national security threat, claiming — without evidence — that it seeks to invade and annex Turkish territory, while similarly accusing the US of plotting against Turkey by establishing military bases in Greece and deploying naval assets in the eastern Mediterranean as part of an alleged strategy to encircle and contain the country.

The US has also been accused of orchestrating a 2016 military coup attempt, which was, in reality, a false flag operation engineered by Turkish intelligence to solidify Erdogan’s grip on power and criminalize legitimate opposition groups.

Erdogan’s rhetoric is often echoed by other government officials, while Turkish media, now largely under government control after a sweeping crackdown on independent journalism and the seizure of hundreds of outlets, amplifies these messages to a wider audience.

Beyond the US, Erdogan’s strong influence has shaped Turkish perceptions of other Western countries.

Over half of Turkish respondents view Germany and France as adversaries, with only a quarter considering France friendly and around one-third having a positive view of Germany. Nearly half also regard Britain, Greece and Russia as enemies, while about a third see them as allies.

It is clear that the xenophobic remarks, constant bashing and public diatribes from Erdogan and his officials against various countries have deeply affected Turks’ perceptions of the global landscape, with the US and Israel bearing the brunt of the damage.

In stark contrast Syria — led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, the head of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham Islamist terror group, and a long-time asset of Turkey’s intelligence agency MIT — was viewed as a friendly nation by 52 percent of Turks, while only 35 percent considered it an adversary.

This shift reflects the influence of Turkish media’s favorable coverage of Al-Sharaa, along with positive remarks from Erdogan and other officials about HTS taking control of governance in Damascus.

The negative outlook towards Turkey’s allies and partners is not coincidental but the result of a deliberate strategy by the Erdogan government. The regime intentionally portrays certain countries as imperialist aggressors and threats to national sovereignty, creating a narrative that aligns with its political goals.

State-controlled media and an extensive propaganda apparatus work relentlessly to spread false narratives, emphasize negative portrayals of these countries and suppress their positive contributions to global politics.

What’s more, Turkish officials frequently invoke historic grievances to fuel public resentment.

This strategy also serves as a convenient distraction from Turkey’s domestic challenges, such as soaring inflation and rising unemployment, which have left millions struggling to make ends meet.

By redirecting public frustration toward external “enemies,” the government avoids accountability and creates a scapegoat for its economic and financial mismanagement, rampant corruption, nepotism and partisanship in governance.

Moreover, by creating imaginary enemies abroad, it sets the stage for portraying legitimate social and democratic demands as foreign-backed conspiracies aimed at undermining Turkey.

This strategy weakens political opposition by branding critics as agents of foreign powers. Journalists, activists and dissidents are often accused of working for the CIA, Mossad or other foreign intelligence agencies without any evidence, effectively silencing influential voices both within Turkey and abroad.

Erdogan firmly believes that demonizing the US and Israel justifies his oppressive policies aimed at opposition groups while providing a pretext for mass surveillance and censorship under the guise of protecting Turkey’s national sovereignty.

When the US or the European Union criticizes Turkey for human rights violations, Erdogan’s government quickly dismisses these concerns as self-serving and hypocritical.

Turkish officials counter by pointing to issues in Western countries, such as racial tensions, xenophobia and Islamophobia, to deflect from their own human rights record.

Furthermore, Erdogan strategically increases anti-US and anti-Israel sentiment during election campaigns, using these narratives to consolidate his base and prevent voter defections. The intensification of rhetoric against the US, Israel and Europe during election periods is no coincidence; it serves to rally public support and reinforce his political dominance.

The ASAL poll underscores the long-term impact of Erdogan’s deliberate strategy in shaping public perception. After 23 years in power, his government has deeply entrenched hostility toward the US and Israel in the collective psyche of Turkey’s 85 million citizens.

Given the opposition’s ongoing struggles — marked by government repression, internal divisions and a lack of unified strategy — this manufactured hostility is unlikely to fade any time soon.

The post Analysis: Erdoğan’s relentless campaign shapes public perception of the US, Israel as top threats appeared first on World Israel News.

Anti-Israel activists at MacEwan University in Edmonton covered the university library walls with banners demanding divestment from Israel and accusing Canada of suppressing the press.

Masked jihadist-supporting students have taken over MacEwan University halls in Edmonton.

It’s called the ‘Mahmoud Khalil Corridor’

pic.twitter.com/Jxtt3qcmOB

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) March 28, 2025

The post WATCH: Anti-Israel group at Canada’s MacEwan University renames hallway ‘Mahmoud Khalil Corridor’ appeared first on World Israel News.

 Islamic University student tells reporters that the Palestinian Authority isn’t involved in what he described as spontaneous protests.

By JNS

Thousands of anti-Hamas protesters in Gaza, who have made international headlines, aim to convey that the terror organization must “get out of the picture” and have no role in the Strip, a 25-year-old law student at the Islamic University of Gaza, who has been part of the protests. told reporters on Wednesday.

The student, who was displaced during the war, declined to be named for his safety. In a video chat that ran about 45 minutes and via translator Hadeel Oueis, he told journalists that he aims to get out of the war alive with the least amount of losses.

“The fact that these protests expanded since yesterday—they started in the north Gaza and Beit Lahia, and now they expanded today to the south—we saw people, thousands of people, protesting” in the middle of Gaza, the student said.

“People are asking to stop the war and Hamas to get out of the picture, the political and military picture in Gaza, so the war can stop,” he added.

In the beginning, Hamas’s propaganda was “very hard to explain,” and the terror group, which had previously defended Gazans’ rights, blamed everything on Gazans, according to the student, who spoke in a conversation organized by the N.Y.-based nonprofit Center for Peace Communications.

“But with time, and as the people were watching how Hamas is playing politics in the negotiations and how Hamas is insisting on the continuation of this war,” he said, and, especially after recent talks, they see that “all Hamas wants is to stay in power, is to make political gains even if the civilian suffering will continue.”

“They see now that Hamas’s priority is to survive as a political entity,” he said.

The student told reporters that the Palestinian Authority isn’t involved in what he described as spontaneous protests.

JNS asked the student what he thought about US President Donald Trump’s view that Gazans aren’t safe in the Strip during a ceasefire and that they should go elsewhere for their protection during reconstruction.

“In fact, life in Gaza has always been hard and not very livable, and in the short term, he agrees with Trump that Gaza won’t be livable,” the student said via the translator.

“But if the plans that they hear and read about for reconstruction will be implemented, then in five to 10 years, at least, Gaza can be livable again.”

“For five years from now, there will still be big suffering, and for sure, Gaza can’t be livable. The situation will be horrible,” he said.

Protesters “want the world to know that Hamas should get out of Gaza, not only to end the current war and the current clashes but also to end 18 years of dictatorship oppression by Hamas against the Gazans,” he told JNS. “Gazans were always suffering from Hamas.”

Those protesting also aim “to show the world that Hamas was lying through its propaganda machines. They were always telling even the Arab world that Hamas has big popularity in Gaza,” he told JNS.

They also have a message for Israel. “Unfortunately, Israel also tried after Oct. 7 to say that the ‘Gazans are animals,’ ‘All Palestinians are animals, and they should be punished,’ and that ‘They are terrorists,’” he said. “You can’t say about seven million Palestinians that they are terrorists—just because there is a terrorist and radical group like Hamas.”

The student added that he no longer believes in a two-state solution. “If we keep talking about the two-state solution, we are not getting anywhere,” he said.

The student told reporters that “many in Gaza support releasing the hostages immediately because they see the hostages as “just a tool” for Hamas’s political gains. “Immediately, under no conditions, the hostages should go back,” he said.

JNS asked what he thought about the Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli prisons. The student said that many of the prisoners are in jail due to their support for Hamas.

He said there are also Gazan civilians in Israeli jails who “have nothing at all to do with Hamas who were arrested on the checkpoints, because of this war that Hamas put us as civilians from Gaza in for no reason.”

The post Two-state solution talk ‘not getting anywhere,’ says Gazan protesting against Hamas appeared first on World Israel News.

The resolutions are unlikely to pass, given the long-standing bipartisan support for Israel in Congress.

By JNS

US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) announced on Thursday that he will force up to eight Senate votes next week on joint resolutions of disapproval aimed at blocking $8.8 billion in US arms sales to Israel, citing concerns over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

The resolutions, which target weapons sales approved by President Donald Trump’s administration, are expected to face significant opposition in the Republican-controlled Senate.

However, Sanders’s effort marks the first major test for Senate Democrats on Israel policy in the new term, reported Jewish Insider, a daily news service based in Washington.

“[Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu has clearly violated US and international law in this brutal war, and we must end our complicity in the carnage,” Sanders said in a statement. He pointed to Israel’s suspension of aid deliveries to Gaza and the destruction of parts of the Strip.

“The latest Trump sales provide almost $8.8 billion more in US bombs and other munitions, including more than 35,000 massive 2,000-pound bombs. The United States must not continue to supply endless amounts of military aid and weaponry to the Netanyahu government,” Sanders said.

According to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, more than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed since Oct. 7, 2023.

However, this figure is inflated to include those who died of natural causes, and despite Hamas claims, the losses include a very high proportion of Palestinian terrorists.

The war began when Hamas-led terrorists attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.

The resolutions are unlikely to pass, given the long-standing bipartisan support for Israel in Congress. However, proponents hope the debate will increase pressure on the US and Israeli governments to address civilian casualties and humanitarian concerns.

The Senate overwhelmingly rejected similar measures Sanders introduced in November, when Democrats controlled the chamber.

At the time, 19 Democrats supported at least one of the resolutions, while no Republicans backed them. Most of those Democrats remain in office, and their votes next week could indicate shifting dynamics on US-Israel policy.

Under US law, Congress can block foreign arms sales through resolutions of disapproval, though none has ever passed both chambers and survived a presidential veto. The law guarantees a Senate vote on such resolutions, often sparking contentious debates.

Trump has reversed efforts by his predecessor, Joe Biden, to impose restrictions on arms transfers to Israel. The upcoming votes will test how the Democratic Party, now in the Senate minority, navigates US policy toward Israel under the Trump administration.

The post Sanders forces US Senate vote on blocking arms sales to Israel appeared first on World Israel News.

“There is no deal yet,” a US official stated, while an Israeli official remarked that the proposal was “more of an idea that isn’t fully clear or developed.”

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

Hamas has reportedly received the newest proposal from US officials to secure the release of the last living American hostage, Edan Alexander, abducted during the Hamas onslaught into Israel in October 2023.

“There is no deal yet,” a US official stated, while an Israeli official remarked that the proposal was “more of an idea that isn’t fully clear or developed.”

Qatar delivered the message from the Trump administration to Hamas officials.

In exchange for Alexander’s release, the US said it would release a statement urging quiet in the region and a return to ceasefire negotiations.

An Arab diplomat was doubtful that Hamas would release Alexander in exchange for a statement that Israel may choose not to heed.

Alexander is one of 59 hostages remaining in Gaza, 24 of whom are thought to be still alive.

Although there was a video showing signs of life, there is concern over reports of Alexander’s condition, where he is being kept in a tunnel with no sunlight and very little nourishment.

This is the second time the release of Alexander has been a focal point of negotiations, with Hamas agreeing to release him in mid-March along with the bodies of four deceased US hostages.

However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Hamas’s claim to release Alexander was not in good faith, and Trump administration Middle East envoy Steven Witkoff blasted Hamas for its “unrealistic demands” in exchange for the American captives.

“Hamas is making a very poor gamble by believing that time is on its side. That is not the case. Hamas is well aware of the deadline and must understand that we will respond accordingly if it passes,” Witkoff cautioned.

“Alexander is very important to us,” Witkoff said. “He is wounded, and he is a top priority.”

The post US makes offer to Hamas for releasing American hostage Eden Alexander appeared first on World Israel News.

Department of Homeland Security official: “A visa is a privilege, not a right.”

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

During a visit to Guyana, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the Trump Administration’s policy of deporting non-citizens who engage in activities that support terror groups.

Rubio said that the US has revoked 300 visas from “lunatics” who openly support Hamas and other terrorist organizations.

He said, “Maybe more than 300 at this point. We do it every day, every time I find one of these lunatics.”

When asked about the visa cancellation of Turkish citizen and Tufts University doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk, Rubio explained, “We revoked [her visa] and here’s why … If you apply for a visa to enter the United States and be a student, and you tell us that the reason that you’re coming to the United States is not just cause you want to write 0p-eds, but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students taking over buildings, creating a ruckus, we’re not gonna give you a visa.”

He added, “If you lie to us and get a visa and enter the United States and with that visa participate in that sort of activity, we’re gonna take away your visa. And once you’ve lost your visa, you’re no longer legally in the United States and we have a right, like every country in the world has a right, to remove you from that country.”

Authorities detained Ozturk on Tuesday after she left her home in the Boston suburb of Somerville, and she was moved to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Basile, Louisiana on Thursday.

A US Department of Homeland Security official said Ozturk “engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans.”

“A visa is a privilege, not a right,” the spokesperson said. “Glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be terminated. This is common sense security.”

The post Sec. of State Rubio says US has canceled 300 visas of ‘lunatics’ who support terrorism appeared first on World Israel News.

In California, an antitrust lawsuit is arguing that the insurance companies that underwrite bail bonds have for decades illegally colluded to keep bail bond premiums artificially high across the industry.

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When you think of the bail industry, you’re likely to think of bail agents and their bounty hunters, who chase down fugitives released on bail for a fee, sometimes employing questionable tactics. But the true profiteers of the United States’ distinctive cash-bail system are insurance brokers, the little-known surety companies that underwrite bail bonds and often collect much of the profits.

An ongoing legal battle in California is exposing the immense power and influence of these bail surety companies, which stand accused of conspiring to keep bail bond premiums at artificially inflated rates to boost profits. If true, this means people are being fleeced trying to get themselves or a loved one out of jail — if they’re able to afford the exorbitant prices at all.

The lawsuit details how for years, the surety lobby allegedly retaliated against bail bondsmen who defected from the price-fixing scheme. According to court records, insurance executives and bail bondsmen colluded to keep bail prices sky-high at industry gatherings at resorts and in Las Vegas casinos and spread misinformation to consumers about bail rates.

As a result, bail bond buyers — people held on bail and their families — in California alone have likely overpaid by more than $2 billion over the last two decades, according to an estimate by an antitrust expert in the case. The higher prices, too, have likely made it more difficult for people to get out of jail before trial, which can cause long-lasting harm. Even a few days in jail can upend people’s lives, leading to lost jobs, lost housing, or unstable family care.

In 2019, two women in California brought the antitrust case against twenty surety companies in the commercial bail business, which account for the majority of bail surety companies operating in the state. The plaintiffs accused them of a price-fixing conspiracy. In recent months — as the case has grown closer to being certified as a class action, which could provide plaintiffs with a better chance of success — two companies have agreed to pay out significant settlements to their customers: $1 million and $2 million, respectively.

The two firms are emblematic of the tangled, murky web of financial interests behind the $2 billion business of for-profit bail. One, Lexon Surety Group, among the biggest bail bond providers in the country, is owned by an insurance conglomerate in Bermuda. The other, Danielson National Insurance Company, was acquired in 2020 by a private-equity-backed Austin-based insurance provider.

Another eighteen surety companies remain as defendants in the antitrust case. It’s a fight that could shape the future of the sprawling bail industry in California and potentially in other states across the country — an industry that for decades has largely succeeded in resisting any attempt by regulators or its own dissenters to lower the price that people must pay to get out of jail.

“I urge all of us to recognize the serious nature of the threats to our industry and work collectively to repel them,” one surety executive is quoted as telling other sureties in court documents.

The case’s theory is sweeping: antitrust attorneys argue the entire industry has for decades violated antitrust law by keeping bail bond premiums consistent across the industry, even under mounting scrutiny from regulators.

“These surety companies are powerful,” noted Jeremy Cherson, director of communications at the Bail Project, a national bail fund. “They have a lot of money and influence. Individual bail bond companies rely on them. They can’t exist without them. So the leverage that the surety companies have to do this is real.”

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“Simple Economics”

In California, like in most other states in the United States, if you are arrested and sent to jail on criminal charges, a judge can set bail for your release, a price you must pay the court to get out of jail as you await trial. If you can’t pay the set bail amount, as is the case for the recipients of 175,000 bails in California each year, you can pay a bail bondsman instead. In California, a state with some of the highest bail costs in the country, there are more than two thousand of these bail agents to choose from.

Say the judge sets your bail at $5,000. If you were to pay the $5,000 up front to the court — and you attended all your court hearings — you would usually get nearly all of the $5,000 back once the case is resolved. But if you can’t afford the $5,000 to start with, you or a loved one can pay a bail bondsman a nonrefundable fraction of the bond, often around 10 percent (in this example, $500). Together California bail bondsmen collect $308 million in these fees annually.

This transaction typically involves signing a complex civil agreement and potentially posting collateral — like your house or car — to secure the loan. If you don’t appear in court, the bondsman can hire a bounty hunter to track you down or send debt collectors your way to chase the $5,000 you owe. The whole system, advocates say, preys on the stress and harms of incarceration and entraps people who are already prone to financial hardship.

“There are a lot of situations where folks are really stressed, worried about their loved ones’ safety, being rushed by the person they’re speaking to at the bail bond company,” said Nisha Kashyap, the racial justice program director at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, which has litigated other cases against the bail industry in California. “It is a situation that is ripe for abuse.”

In many states, when a bail agent issues a bail bond, they’re required to have a surety company underwrite the loan, guaranteeing to the court that the bail will be paid if the defendant doesn’t show up to court. The bail agent and the surety company split the payment (the surety company typically takes the lion’s share), and the agent gives the judge a certificate indicating that the companies will ultimately be responsible for the $5,000.

In California and elsewhere, bail bond rates are typically set at a standard rate of 10 percent. This has been the case for decades; it’s generally taken as common sense.

But as the antitrust case argues, in California, this price doesn’t make much sense. It is rare that surety companies ever have to fork up bail to the court, because people tend to appear at their court dates, and if they don’t, judges frequently let commercial bail companies off the hook for payouts. That means that underwriting bail bonds is an extraordinarily low-cost enterprise. One surety company is quoted in court records as saying it had “not paid a loss on its . . . bail segments during the past 17 years.”

Furthermore, in California, bail agents are given wide leeway to set lower rates, if they choose. (This is not always the case in other states.) Legally, nothing is stopping a given bail agent from offering an 8 percent or 7 percent bail premium or an even lower rate. In a competitive market — given the low costs of the bail business — you might expect that bail agents would have an incentive to lower prices in order to compete with other bondsmen.

One surety executive is quoted in the court records as saying this explicitly: “If left unchecked, rampant premium discounting will result in the end of the bail bond business as we know it, to be replaced by a new model that properly reflects the proper balance of risk and reward.”

“Simple economics dictates it,” he concluded.

But the industry wasn’t left unchecked.

This is the argument of the class-action lawsuit: the reason that bail premiums have stayed at 10 percent in California and elsewhere is because of a disinformation and tooth-and-nail lobbying campaign by the surety companies, which are interested in keeping bail bonds high — fleecing consumers out of potentially billions of dollars as a result.

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“Impending Attack”

In 2003, the biggest bail-bonding agency in the country was California-based Aladdin Bail Bonds. At the time, the company, which remains a major player in the industry, was owned by Robert Spencer Douglass, a bail bondsman.

Some years earlier, in the 1980s, California lawmakers had passed a law to encourage greater competition among the state’s insurance providers — long a troubled industry in the Golden State. Douglass believed that the law, which had succeeded in lowering the state’s exorbitant property and auto insurance rates, also allowed bail agents like himself to offer lower bail bond rates than the 10 percent “standard rate” that was set by the surety companies, though at the time this was not common practice.

Aladdin began offering discounted bail bonds, which “alarmed Aladdin’s competitors, who disparaged Douglass publicly and privately,” the antitrust suit claims. In 2003, in the face of increased pressure from the bail industry, Douglass sued state insurance regulators in order to prove that his practice of offering rebates was legal. In 2004, he won the case — making it clear that bail agents in California can offer the rates that they choose.

This was an inflection point. The state’s surety companies, foreseeing a sharp drop in bail bond premiums, launched a coordinated response. Douglass and Aladdin allegedly faced a harassment campaign. “We are making a list and checking it twice,” reads one letter reproduced in court records, purportedly from a surety trade association. “If we hear of any attorneys referring Aladdin Bail Bonds, you will be listed on our black list and never refer another client from any other bail bonds office.”

“2005 will not be a year when we, as an industry, can sit passively by while competitive forces continue to encroach upon our markets,” William Carmichael, president of American Surety Company, a major-bail bond insurer, and the chairman of the American Bail Coalition, a powerful industry lobbying group, wrote to other surety power brokers, according to court records. “Agents must be our industry’s eyes, ears, and mouths in recognizing and alerting all to the impending attack.”

A decade later, a bail agent named Chad Conley, who owned his own bail agency, allegedly faced a similar harassment campaign by the sureties after he posted on his website explaining that bail bondsmen could offer lower rates.

“Trust me after the good ol boys club came after my license for trying to save clients’ money I was forced to study this!” Conley wrote in a comment on his website, according to court records. “Most people don’t want you to know! They prefer price fixing and would prefer to have it back to only one rate of 10% period.”

Many details of the retaliation against Douglass and Conley are redacted in court documents, which surety companies have been fighting to keep from public view. But it’s clear that the campaign had an impact. Douglass, who had some prior legal trouble, lost his license in 2004. He sold his bail company to an industry attorney that year, who promptly adopted the same line as the surety companies: bail-bond premiums should be at 10 percent. Aladdin now claims to be the biggest bail company in the country.

Conley’s license, too, was later revoked.

“Defendants faced a choice: They could let competitive forces operate in their market, or they could collude to deprive California consumers of the competition that [state law] required,” attorneys in the case wrote. “Defendants chose collusion.”

The industry’s efforts intensified in 2016, when California insurance regulators opened an inquiry into the sureties, according to court documents, investigating whether their bail bond rates had been set too high. Various surety executives, including Carmichael, formed a “Bail Coalition Working Group” to address the investigation. Ultimately, state regulators took only limited action against two bail surety companies.

The industry’s trade associations, the case reveals, are critical to its efforts to keep premiums high. There are many: the Surety and Fidelity Association of America, the American Bail Coalition, the California Bail Insurance Group, the Golden State Bail Agents Association, and others. At trade association conferences — which often took place in Las Vegas or resort towns — they discussed the issue of bail agents offering discounts and formed action plans to address it, the court records allege.

The American Bail Coalition, in particular, has long been a powerful actor on policy issues across the country. The group spends hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying on bail policy and has been a formidable opponent of the bail reform movement. It also has close ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council, an influential conservative policy incubator.

For Clayton with the Bail Project, the lawsuit is emblematic of an industry that has been allowed to operate unchecked for decades. “There’s zero oversight of this industry,” he said. While there might be licensure requirements for bail agents, he acknowledged, “there’s no oversight of outcomes and effectiveness.”

That’s despite years of evidence showing that cash bail is a harmful, dysfunctional system — one that allows affluent people to escape the harms of a long jail stay while trapping poor people behind bars and that encourages people to enter into coercive agreements with bail bondsmen.

This can be true regardless of whether or not you are ultimately convicted of a crime — as was the case for the plaintiffs in the California case. One of the women who brought the antitrust lawsuit bought a bail bond from Aladdin to get herself out of jail; she ultimately faced no criminal charges. The other purchased a bail bond for a relative. Criminal charges in that case, too, were ultimately dropped. Yet both paid what they say is an inflated bail premium price — and neither got their money back.

Now they’re hoping their antitrust case will provide them and others much-needed compensation.

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