Almost two years after a pro-Hamas mob turned the streets outside the Adas Torah synagogue in Los Angeles into a pogrom, the Trump DOJ is doing what the Biden administration couldn't be bothered to do: making someone answer for it.
The Justice Department announced Monday that Zaid Gitesatani, 28, of Carlsbad, California, was arrested on a federal hate crime indictment for assaulting a Jewish man during the June 23, 2024, protests outside the Pico-Robertson synagogue. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in federal prison.
As RedState covered in real time, those protests, organized by groups including the Palestinian Youth Movement and Code Pink, were never just a demonstration. Jewish synagogue members, journalists, and bystanders were punched, pepper-sprayed, kicked, and chased through the neighborhood. Most news outlets barely covered it.
According to the indictment, Gitesatani didn't stumble into trouble. He traveled to Los Angeles specifically to attend the protest, which multiple pro-Palestinian groups had organized against a real estate event at Adas Torah promoting property sales in Israel. One group had advertised it as a protest to "stand against settler expansion."
Read More: Pro-Hamas Agitators Whine Like Babies When Jews They Attacked Turn the Table on Them
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The victim, identified in charging documents only as "Victim A," wasn't even at the event. Prosecutors say he was walking his dog in his own neighborhood near the synagogue when Gitesatani crept up behind him and punched him in the jaw without warning, causing pain, redness, and swelling. Then Gitesatani slipped back into the crowd.
Then he went home and bragged about it on Instagram.
The indictment alleges Gitesatani posted the same day, sharing a screenshot of the attack alongside a photo of his bruised knuckles and the message: "Whooped the Zios today and we took their flag."
He kept going. In private Instagram exchanges over the following days, prosecutors say he wrote:
"I whopped 2 zios."
"I swung good on them."
"It was satisfying."
"I [sic] hand it [sic] numb from punching him so hard."
Later, he posted a still image from the assault with the caption:
"The Chosen People sometimes need a good smack to wake up."
There's your "peaceful protester."
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division said in a statement:
"The defendant's conduct, if proven, is a serious violation of the law — every American deserves to live without fear of violence based on who he is or how he worships. The Justice Department is committed to vigorously prosecuting such crimes of hate and violence."
The grand jury returned the indictment on May 5, 2026. Gitesatani is expected to make his initial court appearance Monday in U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura A. Alexander and DOJ Civil Rights Division Trial Attorney Erica O'Connell.
What Jewish Angelenos got from their own city government in June 2024 was nothing, for hours. Mayor Karen Bass finally issued a statement on X in the middle of the night, after the neighborhood had already been terrorized. The LAPD, according to multiple on-the-ground accounts, spent much of the afternoon forming a cordon that kept Jewish worshipers from entering their own synagogue while anti-Israel demonstrators owned the sidewalk out front. Noah Pollak, a political consultant who was there with his kids and was turned away by police, called it "an absolute disgrace." He wasn't wrong.
The violence happened on Biden's watch. The accountability is happening on Trump's. Some things are worth noting.
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