No peony is safe at the University of Michigan while the war in Gaza continues on. 

That’s the message sent over the weekend by anti-Israel activists who hacked off the heads of hundreds of blooming peonies at the University of Michigan’s Nichols Arboretum Peony Garden in protest of Israel’s war against Hamas. 

On Sunday morning the assailants managed to behead 250 peonies — nearly a third of the garden’s supply — just a few days before the arboretum was expected to reach peak bloom. The garden boasts the largest collection of flowering peony plants in the country. 

The activists left behind flyers to identify the incident as a politically motivated attack. The leaflets, which were strewn alongside the bodiless peony heads, open with the statement: “Plant lives don’t matter. Humans do.” The activists go on to compare the number of visitors that the peony garden draws annually to the death toll in Gaza reported by the Hamas-run health ministry before berating the readers for continuing to “stroll around the arboretum and enjoy your picnic” while Palestinians “are still dying and starving right now.” 

The flyers continue: “Palestinian lives deserve to be cared for. More than these flowers.” The activists then instruct the community not to “waste your tears on the peonies,” which will “grow again next spring.” 

The arboretum’s director, Tony Kolenic, denounced the attack, lamenting, “These peonies are not just plants. They are living beings. They have been nurtured over generations, and bring joy, a sense of community, and connection to the natural world for so many people.” 

The flower blitz opens a new front in the anti-Israel protest tactics employed by student activists at the University of Michigan. In the wake of Hamas’s October 7 attack, administrators at the Ann Arbor school have been targeted by anti-Israel vandalism on at least five occasions. 

A University of Michigan regent, Jordan Acker, who is Jewish, has had anti-Israel vandals target his home, his car, and even his law office. Michigan’s president, Santa Ono, along with the school’s chief investment officer, Erik Lundberg, were both vandalized on the one-year anniversary of the October 7 attack on Israel.
This latest tactic, however, appears to have angered even those who consider themselves members of Michigan’s pro-Palestine community.

A graduate student, Luke Newman, who participated in the anti-Israel encampment on campus last year, said that it was “unfortunate and upsetting” that the activists “don’t have a positive way to take that frustration and turn it into something that will form community ties,” he told a local news outlet, MLive.