Hoboken Man Arrested Over Alleged Plan To Firebomb Home of WOL’s Nerdeen Kiswani

A New Jersey man was arrested and charged Friday for allegedly planning to firebomb the home of the founder of the anti-Zionist group Within Our Lifetime, Nerdeen Kiswani, and then take refuge in Israel.A New York Police Department spokesperson said the man, Alexander Heifler, of Hoboken, New Jersey, had spent weeks talking to an undercover NYPD officer about his plan to throw Molotov cocktails around the Staten Island residence of Ms. Kiswani, 31. Mr. Heifler, 25, was arrested Thursday night by federal law enforcement as he was assembling eight Molotov cocktails that he allegedly planned to throw inside Ms. Kiswani’s property. He is facing two federal charges of unlawful possession of firearms and unlawful making of firearms.It wasn’t immediately known when he would be appearing in court. The United States attorney’s office did not respond to questions from The New York Sun. The investigation was initiated by the NYPD Racial Ethnic Motivated Extremism Unit, which is a branch of its Intelligence Division.On her X account, Ms. Kiswani said she was informed late Thursday night by the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force “that a plot against my life was ‘about to’ take place.”Ms. Kiswani seemingly blamed the incident on “Zionist organizations like Betar and politicians like Randy Fine” who, she said, have “encouraged violence against my family and me.” As the outspoken founder of the hardline anti-Israel group Within Our Lifetime, Ms. Kiswani has helped foment some of the most virulent anti-Israel protests and rhetoric. “We don’t want Zionists in Palestine, NYC, our schools, on the train, ANYWHERE,” she wrote on X in 2024.In February, she was the subject of intense backlash when, after responding to conversations about dog waste on city streets, Ms. Kiswani called dogs “unclean.”“Finally, NYC is coming to Islam,” she wrote on X. “Dogs definitely have a place in society, just not as indoor pets.”Ms. Kiswani was not made aware of the threat against her life until after Mr. Heifler’s arrest, an NYPD spokesman said. The undercover officer first met Mr. Heifler on February 10 in a video group chat, in which Mr. Heifler, who is Jewish, asked the group if anyone had a training space “where he could throw Molotovs,” according to the criminal complaint.The undercover agent sent Mr. Heifler a text through an encrypted messaging service telling him, “Hey let’s talk about that in person / Don’t say that on here.” Mr. Heifler responded: “don’t use the M-word. copy that.”The undercover agent subsequently met Mr. Heifle in person to discuss his plan to attack Ms. Kiswani’s home. He preferred to use Molotov cocktails as they were “not complicated to make,” according to the criminal complaint. In further conversations, Mr. Heifler told the agent that he had conducted surveillance outside Ms. Kiswani’s home and had purchased a DNA kit from a pharmacy to see if he had left any traces of his DNA on a Molotov cocktail he had already assembled, according to the complaint. The agent suggested getting a dozen bottles from “other people’s recycling containers” to avoid being detected, an NYPD spokesman said. Mr. Heifler told the agent that he planned to escape to Israel at the end of April, although it wasn’t immediately clear if he had pre-existing ties to the country, according to a law enforcement source.Mr. Heifler is believed to have been working alone and not on behalf of a foreign government. It wasn’t immediately clear why he chose to target Ms. Kiswani, “other than her affiliations and beliefs,” the source added.

Hoboken Man Arrested Over Alleged Plan To Firebomb Home of WOL’s Nerdeen Kiswani

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