Soros Prosecutor Won’t Shut Down Pro-Palestinian Encampment Outside Antony Blinken’s Home

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA—For nine months, Palestinian protesters have camped out around the clock in front of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s home, pouring fake blood on the ground and shrieking at the top of their lungs in the middle of the night.

The protests may violate several Virginia laws. But the local prosecutor in Arlington—the only person with the authority to enforce those laws—has declined to do so.

Arlington County Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti told The Daily Wire in an email that “Based on the facts and circumstances shared by the ACPD, there is no basis in the law to charge the demonstrators.”

Dehgani-Tafti, an Iranian-American former public defender with no prosecutorial experience who was elected Arlington’s prosecutor with the help of hundreds of thousands of dollars from George Soros, declined to discuss what legal reasoning had led her to believe that the facts did not meet the threshold of the law.

But several state and local ordinances prohibit the kind of late-night disruptions and disruptive activities the protestors engage in, and frequently document on social media.

Dehgani-Tafti’s refusal to prosecute the protesters comes as public figures face increasingly incendiary rhetoric and threats. Pro-Palestinian protesters have pushed the bounds of accepted political activism by targeting officials at their family homes.

The attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump further highlights the risks officials face. The most recent presidential candidate to be assassinated—Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.—was killed by a Palestinian angry at Kennedy’s “pro-Zionist” policies.

Protesters have set up tents along the side of the narrow, secluded Chain Bridge Road and are occupying them around the clock with a rotating group. They have chronicled their behavior on video—posting, for example, video to Instagram on June 16 of them shouting at Blinken as he returned from an international trip at 3:30 a.m., while pouring red bottles of liquid onto the ground next to his car.

“Bloody Blinken, butcher of Gaza,” they shouted. “I hate to break your bubble of imperialist delusion while you starve children to death and torture people in concentration camps but Israel has been charged with the crime of extermination!”

The protestors have been camped outside of Blinken’s home for so long that, at one point, if one Googled “Kibbutz Blinken”—the protesters’ name for the encampment, which mocks Israeli communes—Blinken’s home address appeared, as if it were a restaurant or theme park attraction.

Virginia code 18.2-419. Picketing or disrupting tranquility of home says that “Any person who shall engage in picketing before or about the residence or dwelling place of any individual, or who shall assemble with another person or persons in a manner which disrupts or threatens to disrupt any individual’s right to tranquility in his home, shall be guilty of a Class 3 misdemeanor. Each day on which a violation of this section occurs shall constitute a separate offense.”

According to the Arlington County Code, “It shall be unlawful for any person in a group of four or more persons to engage, during the nighttime, in yelling, wailing, shouting, or screaming such that the yelling, wailing, shouting or screaming is heard in any” residential area, and “Any violation of this chapter may be charged as a misdemeanor.” The code defines “nighttime” as 9 p.m. to 7 a.m.

 

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A post shared by Sumer Mobarak (@sumermob)

State law section 33.2-1224 makes it illegal to place signs in a highway’s right-of-way or attach them to highway objects, and says no one may use a highway right-of-way without a permit. Under state law, anywhere with “camping units for periods of overnight or longer” is defined as a campground, requiring a permit, inspection, and sanitation facilities.

Ashley Savage, a spokesman for the Arlington County Police Department, told The Daily Wire in an email that the department “is committed to ensuring individuals and groups can safely and peacefully demonstrate” and “at this time, there is no probable cause for a violation of a Virginia code section.”

She said the department has only arrested two protestors: one who painted a yellow fire hydrant red, and a driver who repeatedly blew her horn and refused to show her driver’s license. Concrete barriers have been installed on the narrow roadway, and protesters set up their tents on that strip.

When The Daily Wire visited the protest site in mid-June, the fire hydrant would have been difficult to access in the event of an emergency. Video from the protesters suggests that the government subsequently spent money modifying the fire hydrant to accommodate the protesters by adding an extension that elevates it above their materials and the barrier.

Outside Blinken’s home / Instagram

Outside Blinken’s home / Daily Wire

“NO HORN BLOWING” signs have been installed to prevent drivers who support the protesters from noisily expressing their support. Blinken’s road leads from Washington, D.C., to the toniest neighborhoods occupied by government employees, where protesters are met by a mix of reactions from passersby.

Though the protest included more than a dozen people early on, when The Daily Wire visited only three people were on site: Sumer Mobarak, a protest leader, along with a white man in his 30s who declined to give his name, and a black woman who refused to speak. The man said that the protesters live in the tents and use the bathroom in buckets inside them. He said that they stop making noise at 9 p.m. because they are conscious that it is against Arlington law, and want the protest to continue for the long term.

But shortly after The Daily Wire’s visit, the protesters shared video of them making noise well into the night on social media.

The prohibition against picketing at people’s homes is one of many laws a new crop of leftist prosecutors has chosen to ignore. Precedent for not enforcing the law was established when leftist activists staked out the homes of conservative Supreme Court in the summer of 2022 to protest the Court’s anticipated reversal of Roe v. Wade.

At the time, the marshal of the Supreme Court petitioned state and local leaders in Virginia and Maryland to enforce laws that would curb the protests. Fairfax County Chairman Jeff McKay replied that the law “is likely a violation of the First Amendment.” Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, a Republican, sought authority to enforce criminal law in cases where local prosecutors would not. His petition passed the Republican-controlled state house, but was blocked by the Democrat-controlled state Senate.

In Maryland, Montgomery County police later arrested a man who had allegedly come to kill Justice Brett Kavanaugh at his home.

The Arlington County Police Department has not responded to a request for records of police activity on Blinken’s block, saying it would take 60 days to process.

The protest site lies just barely on the Arlington side of the Arlington-Fairfax County border. Fairfax police provided records showing that on December 8, Arlington requested assistance with “10x protesters blocking the roadway right at the border between the two” jurisdictions. On January 26 of this year, they made record of “protesters gathering at night using air horns.”

Outside Blinken’s home / Daily Wire

Outside Blinken’s home / Instagram

On January 28, another caller complained of “at least 20 people protesting” with bullhorns, vehicles “parked all over the road,” and protesters “yelling lots of profanity.” Fairfax police responded that “Arlington County PD has the lead on any enforcement action to be taken against protesters / Also, law against protesting at a residence has been deemed to be likely unconstitutional.”

According to a lawsuit filed in federal court, the leader of “protests in front of the Israeli Embassy, and in front of the home of Secretary of State Antony Blinken” is Hazami Barmada, who has worked as a “strategy consultant for the United Nations.”

A rabbi filed the lawsuit against Barmada in May alleging a “Hate Violation Based on Religious and/or Ethnic Identity” following a “physical attack on Rabbi Herzfeld while he was praying in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C.” The lawsuit says Barmada’s group blasted sirens more than 1,000 times louder than allowed by law at the rabbi, while Barmada’s group wore earplugs.

In response, Barmada sought from a D.C. city judge—and was granted—a restraining order against the rabbi preventing him from coming near Barmada.

The home address listed in the lawsuit for Barmada, who presents herself as a tent-dwelling radical, is a $1.5 million house with an indoor pool.

One of the groups behind the protests at the Israeli Embassy and Blinken’s home is the Palestinian Youth Movement, which is bankrolled in part by the Bafrayung Fund, tax records show. The fund is led by Rachel Gelman, a Levi Strauss heir, cousin of Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), and daughter of a Biden appointee.

Outside Blinken’s home / Instagram