Protest what, the right of the government to determine if a green card holder violated terms of the privilege given to them to live here? And others here on visas, they can easily be revoked.
If you have issue with how the US treats their guests protesting US national Security issues, go to Gaza and protest there. See how long that lasts.
So much for free speech and equality under the law. Good to see that some are all for a suspension of constitutional guarantees. We’re being warned. From the Guardian:
How antisemitism avoided the fate of antiracism
The promotion of Israel’s national narrative remains exempt from Trump’s wholesale attack on DEI
On 7 March, the Trump administration announced that it had cancelled $400m in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University, saying the school’s “Jewish students have faced relentless violence, intimidation, and antisemitic harassment on their campuses” and that “universities must comply with all federal anti-discrimination laws if they are going to receive federal funding”.
The “harassment” leveraged by the president and other pro-Israel ideologues was a reference to the paradigm-setting pro-Palestinian activism that energized the campus over the past year. Columbia’s students became national leaders in the anti-genocide movement, and the Gaza solidarity encampment they established garnered international attention – including from the US Congress, which held hearings on so-called “campus antisemitism”.
Trump’s cynical attempt to protect an allegedly vulnerable class of students came just after executive orders banning diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs – initiatives whose prime directive has historically been to ensure equal opportunity for marginalized groups – within institutions that receive federal funding. In the first few months of his presidency, Trump has augmented the “Palestine exception” – that amorphous but consequential social limitation of the first amendment that enables suppression of pro-Palestinian/anti-Zionist speech – with an “Israel exception” from DEI prohibitions. In effect, the promotion of Israel’s national narrative not only remains exempt from the wholesale attack on DEI, but it also functions as a weapon used to attack people and communities previously protected.
The current blow to Columbia’s funding came after a culmination of administrative efforts to pander to Trump’s war on DEI, beginning with the removal of Columbia athletics’ transgender inclusion policy from its website in early February, followed soon after with the altering of DEI language on a number of Columbia websites, and a directive to department chairs to “temporarily” remove any “DEI language” from departmental websites.
Where did this cowardly compliance, this last-ditch effort at saving the university from federal funding cuts, get the school? Columbia’s leadership has transformed the institution into an international laughingstock, a rudderless ship, poorer in every way – from its balance sheet to its moral vision. And after more than a year of many powerful Zionists purposefully conflating the way that some Jewish students feel unsafe on campus with actual danger, we have now witnessed a Palestinian student, Mahmoud Khalil, literally being abducted from New York to a detention center across state borders notorious for its mistreatment of detainees.
The ground for Trump’s attacks on Columbia has been well prepared by all manner of Zionist Jewish entities – with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) at the front, as usual. The ADL has come under sustained criticism in recent years for the ways it has used the halo effect of its origins as a civil rights organization to support racist policing, surveil progressive groups and cozy up to actual antisemites who happen to also be supporters of Israel.
But the group has been joined by a range of swaggering actors: the newly emboldened Kahanist group Betar Worldwide; Columbia’s own professor Shai Davidai, who has terrorized numerous Arab and Arab American students, including Mahmoud Khalil just before his kidnapping; and Zionist Jewish alumni groups. All have conspired to gin up a topsy-turvy mythology of what they call a crisis of “campus antisemitism”, but which is really a reactionary crisis surrounding the increasing popularity of campus anti-Zionism.
As a father and daughter who represent two generations of anti-Zionist Jewish scholars and activists – one of us a professor at University of Massachusetts Boston, and the other a graduate student at Columbia University – it seems manifest that we are witnessing a purposeful and devastating bait and switch. Every articulation of anti-Israel speech (or even the simplest affirmation of Palestinian human rights) gets recoded as dangerous antisemitic action.
Columbia University now serves the Trumpist agenda of ‘free speech except Palestine’ and ‘free of DEI except Zionism’
The “Israel exception” to DEI means that the university’s post-October 7 antisemitism taskforce, formed on the pretext of protecting Jews on campus, was never paired with an Islamophobia or anti-Arab taskforce, despite the fact that Arab and Muslim students have been continually subjected to doxing campaigns from far-right organizations such as Canary Mission and Accuracy in Media, and singled out in a WhatsApp group comprising faculty, administrators, students, alumni and parents seeking to persecute student activists and get them deported.
The “Israel exception” means that the faculty member Gil Zussman remains on the taskforce even after it was exposed that he is part of the WhatsApp group actively putting student’s lives at risk. Meanwhile, the longtime pro-Palestinian Columbia law professor Katherine Franke was essentially forced out of her tenured position for what many saw as a relatively minor speech infraction.
The “Israel exception” means that the antisemitism taskforce only concerns itself with certain kinds of Jews; anti-Zionist Jews do not register in the furrowed-brow rhetoric of university administrators, politicians or self-appointed Jewish community leaders, except as a problem to be eradicated. Columbia University is now at the vanguard of our political and cultural moment, serving the Trumpist agenda of “free speech except Palestine” and “free of DEI except Zionism”.
What is most significant in the focused dismantling of DEI protocols is how Jewishness and Zionism has been spared. The banned word list issued by the National Science Foundation includes terms from “disabled” to “transgender” to “racism”, but no censoring of anything having to do with Zionism, Israel or Jews. As civil rights gains having to do with race, gender, ability and sexuality are rolled back, it has become exceedingly clear that the animus is not against DEI protocols and protections per se: Zionist Jews will remain a specially protected class. This serves the Republican party in ways concerning foreign policy, the cultural wars and electoral politics, and stands as the culmination of over a year’s worth of moral panic over the “safety” of Jewish students on college campuses.
The writer Lucien Baskin outlined this moral panic in an article that argues the current hysteria has roots in both liberal and rightwing premises. Baskin explains that for liberals, the putative antisemitism crisis is one more articulation of their understanding of racism as rooted in bad individual acts, rather than systemic injustice. On the right, the antisemitism hysteria is a Trojan horse for well-organized and well-funded attacks on American education at all levels – targeting libraries, secondary school curricula, and university teaching and publishing.
The basic premise that influential Zionists have been promoting is that widespread pro-Palestinian activity on campuses across the country proves that US universities are essentially anti-Zionist institutions and that anti-Zionism is antisemitic. This promotion has happened as pro-Palestinian students have been doxed and had job offers rescinded, as three Palestinian students were shot in a hate crime in Vermont, and as pro-Palestinian professors have been fired.
The US has a legible history of antisemitism, but American antisemitism has never been a sustained systemic force in our history – like the way that anti-Black racism has been, for instance. There have been plenty of isolated antisemitic acts (up to and including lynching) and plenty of anti-Jewish thought and expression in the US. But by and large Jews have been remarkably safe in the United States. When Jews have faced sustained antisemitism there has almost always been a powerful white Christian man at the wheel, from Henry Ford to the radio preacher Charles Coughlin to Donald Trump.
We are in a moment when many Jewish Americans and their rightwing allies have strategically weaponized the history of European antisemitism, and the more episodic American version, to prosecute a case against free speech and academic freedom. It is a deft trick that has been staged by powerful figures from the campus of Columbia University to the Oval Office, and one that is familiar to anyone who has read Amy Kaplan’s work on the Americanization of Zionism. Depicting Israelis as “invincible victims”, at once always under attack yet also preternaturally powerful, this social project of having the most cake and eating it too is turning out to be one of the most consequential political formations of our era.
This is one of many reasons we have to pay attention to the current “campus antisemitism” crisis – because ultimately it is doing two major things at once: it is distracting us from the genocide and continued siege of Gaza, and it is obscuring the reality of relative safety for American Jews in favor of a hyped-up narrative of fraught vulnerability. This almost certainly will not – as the idiom puts it – be good for the Jews. As pawns in a larger game being run by Christian Zionists (who often happen to be white supremacists), the safety of American Jews, Zionist or not, is hardly the endgame.
Jeff Melnick is a professor of American studies at UMass Boston
Jessie Lee Rubin is a PhD candidate in ethnomusicology at Columbia University
what statements specifically has he made before , during or after that affected the US ability to be ignored by the Israeli regime in regards to the so called biden plan eventually agreed to by both parties after the election?
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
The protesters broke a long list of laws. They were our guests here. They deserve their day in court. The government has the right to determine whether they violated terms of the privilege granted to them.
and thus far only one "arrest" , that individual sent from NYC to a detention center in Louisiana, surely with the volume of "guests" in this country that are in NYC there is an ICE center there or closer by than Louisiana, no?
using the broadly vague language available to SoS in this regard, specificallythe admin stating cracking down on antisemitism, when this same admin employs folks outwardly espousing same, including dear old Leon and his "roman salute" with nary a word said about THAT suggests this whole thing is bullshit.
you may not like his speech , but please answer this question, what statements and actions directly line up with what Rubio is doing in regards to the green card?
video would be helpful, or at a minimum confirmed attributable quotes by Khalil.
Reporting I have seen shows he in fact was vocally against antisemitism in any form anywhere.
and then answer the question I have asked for going on a year now.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
The protesters broke a long list of laws. They were our guests here. They deserve their day in court. The government has the right to determine whether they violated terms of the privilege granted to them.
Which long list? Perhaps you’ll list them? What or how did Khalil’s arrest warrant read? What are the specific charges? Was he read his Miranda rights and offered an attorney prior to detention?
All I know is that if one of my kids was lucky enough to get into Colombia and a protesting group impeded their graduation or the ability to attend classes, I would be pissed and call everyone I could. Speak your mind, be active for your cause, but do not mess it up for the other students. For better or worse, cops and Gov agents in the US have the right to detain you, cuff you, and throw you in jail, even if it is just an allegation. They do not care about the merits or facts of a case. They do not need a warrant. It is their job to detain and jail a person for even something as minor as disorderly conduct. Then the legal system takes over.
All I know is that if one of my kids was lucky enough to get into Colombia and a protesting group impeded their graduation or the ability to attend classes, I would be pissed and call everyone I could. Speak your mind, be active for your cause, but do not mess it up for the other students. For better or worse, cops and Gov agents in the US have the right to detain you, cuff you, and throw you in jail, even if it is just an allegation. They do not care about the merits or facts of a case. They do not need a warrant. It is their job to detain and jail a person for even something as minor as disorderly conduct. Then the legal system takes over.
I agree. I’d be pissed too. But, to be frank, the law’s mandate is “fuck your feelings”. The law deals in facts. I have zero problem with due process, however, as I understand it, he hasn’t been charged. Detainment without cause isn’t due process. If he did something illegal, charge him. If he didn’t, let him go.
Edit: I didn’t realize he’d been charged. I thought he’d simply been detained.
Edit 2: ok, I was right. He hasn’t been charged. I must have been resding dated sources.
Post edited by HughFreakingDillon on
"Oh Canada...you're beautiful when you're drunk" -EV 8/14/93
All I know is that if one of my kids was lucky enough to get into Colombia and a protesting group impeded their graduation or the ability to attend classes, I would be pissed and call everyone I could. Speak your mind, be active for your cause, but do not mess it up for the other students. For better or worse, cops and Gov agents in the US have the right to detain you, cuff you, and throw you in jail, even if it is just an allegation. They do not care about the merits or facts of a case. They do not need a warrant. It is their job to detain and jail a person for even something as minor as disorderly conduct. Then the legal system takes over.
Another voice for authoritarianism. The protests at Columbia ended months ago. Where are all the other protester arrests? Did Khalil act alone? Talk about jack booted thugs. Remember, that’s how the right referred to the ATF.
The “accused” used to have rights in ‘Murica. Not anymore.
And in case you forgot, “policing” is part of the “legal system.” Good lord are we so fucked.
What’s more, the “adverse foreign policy consequences” argument for deporting Khalil is vague enough that it could in theory extend not just to any international student who participated in the Gaza protests, but just about any non-citizen protesting on behalf of the Palestinians – or, indeed, any other issue the government declares to be a “foreign policy” aim. The legal journal Just Security points out: “If the government has an objective to promote fossil fuel use across the globe, for example, then the secretary of state could deem climate science advocates – or even non-citizens who own green technology firms – deportable on the ground that their residency ‘undermines the policy objective’ of promoting fossil fuels.”
"Oh Canada...you're beautiful when you're drunk" -EV 8/14/93
Warrantless arrests. That’s what folks are advocating for, defending and seemingly totally okay with. From The New Yorker:
Last Saturday evening, a recent Columbia University graduate student named Mahmoud Khalilwas greeted in the lobby of his apartment building, in Morningside Heights, by four plainclothes agents from the Department of Homeland Security. They said that his student visa had been revoked and that he was being arrested, with a plan to deport him. Khalil, a Syrian-born Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent, had been a leader of the pro-Palestine protests that consumed Columbia’s campus life last year. He called his lawyer Amy Greer, and she spoke with one of the agents. When Greer told him that Khalil did not have or need a student visa, because he is a permanent U.S. resident with a green card, the agent said that D.H.S. had revoked his green card, too. When Greer asked to see the warrant, the agent hung up.
A warrant is not needed for an arrest. Or application of immigration rules.
Glad you’re comfortable with it, then. From The New Yorker:
Khalil is thirty years old, has earned a master’s degree in public administration, and once interned at the United Nations. (His wife, an American citizen of Syrian descent, is about to give birth.) Within the protests that he was associated with, a university task force found a “serious and pervasive” atmosphere of antisemitism, in which Jewish students were targeted and harassed. But Khalil had served as an interlocutor with the university administration, and in public statements he disavowed antisemitism and insisted that a change in the government of Israel would represent liberation for Palestinians and Jews alike. Was this really the fight the TrumpAdministration wanted to pick?
As it turned out, once the Administration explained what it was up to, this was exactly the fight it wanted. “The allegation here is not that he was breaking the law,” a White House official told the Free Press. A statement from D.H.S. said, vaguely, that Khalil had “led activities aligned to Hamas,” wording that smudges the crucial distinction between antisemitism and opposition to Israeli policy. The government’s deportation order relied on an obscure 1952 immigration statute that allows the Secretary of State to revoke permanent residency from anyone he judges to be undermining U.S. foreign policy. The Administration seemed prepared to argue that Khalil’s “continued presence in this country,” as the Times put it, made the American goal of combatting antisemitism more difficult. No specific actions were even alleged; Khalil was evidently being deported simply because the Administration did not like what he had to say.
"[s]tudents were targeted and harassed" that is all I need to know. Whatever your cause. I would guess some of the behavior was close to assault. I do not want my 19 year old being shouted at or forced to go around a demonstration. That behavior is not acceptable and what is a 30 year old doing on campus? Seems like just a troublemaker. Go protest at the UN or the embassies. Leave the college kids alone or do it with kid gloves.
"[s]tudents were targeted and harassed" that is all I need to know. Whatever your cause. I would guess some of the behavior was close to assault. I do not want my 19 year old being shouted at or forced to go around a demonstration. That behavior is not acceptable and what is a 30 year old doing on campus? Seems like just a troublemaker. Go protest at the UN or the embassies. Leave the college kids alone or do it with kid gloves.
Who “targeted and harassed “the students? Khalil? He was arrested in the foyer of Columbia University graduate housing. Seems he had every right to be there. But fuck him, right?
It is your quote from the New Yorker. Why would a 30 year old be living, or even visiting, campus housing? What was his right to be there?
Guess you’re not familiar with campus housing, graduate students, PhD candidates, etc? Lots of reasons but maybe, just maybe because he fucking lived there and was scheduled to graduate from a masters program in May, maybe? From wiki:
Khalil completed work on his master's degree in December 2024 and was due to graduate in May 2025.[20][21]As a student, he interned for UNRWA, a United Nations relief agency that supports Palestinian refugees.[16]
I didnt go to college. So I cant say from experience. So I'm asking, those who went , was the point if it the end ceremony or the fucking education and degree?
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
I didnt go to college. So I cant say from experience. So I'm asking, those who went , was the point if it the end ceremony or the fucking education and degree?
For me, it wasn’t the destination but the journey. Hard to believe, I know. Kurt Vonnegut gave a great commencement speech though.
It is your quote from the New Yorker. Why would a 30 year old be living, or even visiting, campus housing? What was his right to be there?
Guess you’re not familiar with campus housing, graduate students, PhD candidates, etc? Lots of reasons but maybe, just maybe because he fucking lived there and was scheduled to graduate from a masters program in May, maybe? From wiki:
Khalil completed work on his master's degree in December 2024 and was due to graduate in May 2025.[20][21]As a student, he interned for UNRWA, a United Nations relief agency that supports Palestinian refugees.[16]
I am very familiar. I have a kid in college and a graduate degree. Most full time students move off campus after their junior year as an undergrad. A masters takes two years unless you are only taking part time classes over many years. That is not a PHD program. Usually you cannot get student housing if you are part time or just taking night classes. But hey it is NYC so why not take advantage of student housing for as long as you can?
It is your quote from the New Yorker. Why would a 30 year old be living, or even visiting, campus housing? What was his right to be there?
Guess you’re not familiar with campus housing, graduate students, PhD candidates, etc? Lots of reasons but maybe, just maybe because he fucking lived there and was scheduled to graduate from a masters program in May, maybe? From wiki:
Khalil completed work on his master's degree in December 2024 and was due to graduate in May 2025.[20][21]As a student, he interned for UNRWA, a United Nations relief agency that supports Palestinian refugees.[16]
I am very familiar. I have a kid in college and a graduate degree. Most full time students move off campus after their junior year as an undergrad. A masters takes two years unless you are only taking part time classes over many years. That is not a PHD program. Usually you cannot get student housing if you are part time or just taking night classes. But hey it is NYC so why not take advantage of student housing for as long as you can?
So, did he have the “right” to be there? Love the sweeping generalities, by the way.
It is your quote from the New Yorker. Why would a 30 year old be living, or even visiting, campus housing? What was his right to be there?
Guess you’re not familiar with campus housing, graduate students, PhD candidates, etc? Lots of reasons but maybe, just maybe because he fucking lived there and was scheduled to graduate from a masters program in May, maybe? From wiki:
Khalil completed work on his master's degree in December 2024 and was due to graduate in May 2025.[20][21]As a student, he interned for UNRWA, a United Nations relief agency that supports Palestinian refugees.[16]
I am very familiar. I have a kid in college and a graduate degree. Most full time students move off campus after their junior year as an undergrad. A masters takes two years unless you are only taking part time classes over many years. That is not a PHD program. Usually you cannot get student housing if you are part time or just taking night classes. But hey it is NYC so why not take advantage of student housing for as long as you can?
So, did he have the “right” to be there? Love the sweeping generalities, by the way.
Not sweeping generalities but facts based on the experiences and housing rules with both me and my kid, who is currently at a university in NY state. I do not believe there is a right to student housing. Heck, I almost got kicked out for having beer in my room.
It is your quote from the New Yorker. Why would a 30 year old be living, or even visiting, campus housing? What was his right to be there?
Guess you’re not familiar with campus housing, graduate students, PhD candidates, etc? Lots of reasons but maybe, just maybe because he fucking lived there and was scheduled to graduate from a masters program in May, maybe? From wiki:
Khalil completed work on his master's degree in December 2024 and was due to graduate in May 2025.[20][21]As a student, he interned for UNRWA, a United Nations relief agency that supports Palestinian refugees.[16]
I am very familiar. I have a kid in college and a graduate degree. Most full time students move off campus after their junior year as an undergrad. A masters takes two years unless you are only taking part time classes over many years. That is not a PHD program. Usually you cannot get student housing if you are part time or just taking night classes. But hey it is NYC so why not take advantage of student housing for as long as you can?
So, did he have the “right” to be there? Love the sweeping generalities, by the way.
Not sweeping generalities but facts based on the experiences and housing rules with both me and my kid, who is currently at a university in NY state. I do not believe there is a right to student housing. Heck, I almost got kicked out for having beer in my room.
Your experiences are everyone’s experiences, eh? Older students don’t exist? Every student is “traditional”, 18-22, maybe 17-21. No way a 30 year old could or should live in graduate housing, eh? Do you believe what you post? All grad programs are two years as well? How do you explain law or med school?
It is your quote from the New Yorker. Why would a 30 year old be living, or even visiting, campus housing? What was his right to be there?
Guess you’re not familiar with campus housing, graduate students, PhD candidates, etc? Lots of reasons but maybe, just maybe because he fucking lived there and was scheduled to graduate from a masters program in May, maybe? From wiki:
Khalil completed work on his master's degree in December 2024 and was due to graduate in May 2025.[20][21]As a student, he interned for UNRWA, a United Nations relief agency that supports Palestinian refugees.[16]
I am very familiar. I have a kid in college and a graduate degree. Most full time students move off campus after their junior year as an undergrad. A masters takes two years unless you are only taking part time classes over many years. That is not a PHD program. Usually you cannot get student housing if you are part time or just taking night classes. But hey it is NYC so why not take advantage of student housing for as long as you can?
So, did he have the “right” to be there? Love the sweeping generalities, by the way.
Not sweeping generalities but facts based on the experiences and housing rules with both me and my kid, who is currently at a university in NY state. I do not believe there is a right to student housing. Heck, I almost got kicked out for having beer in my room.
Your experiences are everyone’s experiences, eh? Older students don’t exist? Every student is “traditional”, 18-22, maybe 17-21. No way a 30 year old could or should live in graduate housing, eh? Do you believe what you post? All grad programs are two years as well? How do you explain law or med school?
There are older students that live on campus, particularly in the field of Psychiatry. They seem to be in school forever and might even be RAs to help pay for their education. I went to law school in NYC and they did not even offer student housing. I am not going to keep debating you, but you can get kicked off campus or get arrested for even minor offenses. If you are here on a visa or even a green card, then your status may be jeopardized. You can get your due process, but it may take years to resolve. My biggest fear is that green cards might start being revoked for hardworking people that have done nothing wrong, and deported simply based on their home country.
It is your quote from the New Yorker. Why would a 30 year old be living, or even visiting, campus housing? What was his right to be there?
Guess you’re not familiar with campus housing, graduate students, PhD candidates, etc? Lots of reasons but maybe, just maybe because he fucking lived there and was scheduled to graduate from a masters program in May, maybe? From wiki:
Khalil completed work on his master's degree in December 2024 and was due to graduate in May 2025.[20][21]As a student, he interned for UNRWA, a United Nations relief agency that supports Palestinian refugees.[16]
I am very familiar. I have a kid in college and a graduate degree. Most full time students move off campus after their junior year as an undergrad. A masters takes two years unless you are only taking part time classes over many years. That is not a PHD program. Usually you cannot get student housing if you are part time or just taking night classes. But hey it is NYC so why not take advantage of student housing for as long as you can?
So, did he have the “right” to be there? Love the sweeping generalities, by the way.
Not sweeping generalities but facts based on the experiences and housing rules with both me and my kid, who is currently at a university in NY state. I do not believe there is a right to student housing. Heck, I almost got kicked out for having beer in my room.
Your experiences are everyone’s experiences, eh? Older students don’t exist? Every student is “traditional”, 18-22, maybe 17-21. No way a 30 year old could or should live in graduate housing, eh? Do you believe what you post? All grad programs are two years as well? How do you explain law or med school?
There are older students that live on campus, particularly in the field of Psychiatry. They seem to be in school forever and might even be RAs to help pay for their education. I went to law school in NYC and they did not even offer student housing. I am not going to keep debating you, but you can get kicked off campus or get arrested for even minor offenses. If you are here on a visa or even a green card, then your status may be jeopardized. You can get your due process, but it may take years to resolve. My biggest fear is that green cards might start being revoked for hardworking people that have done nothing wrong, and deported simply based on their home country.
So you’re okay with Khalil being arrested, detained and having his green card revoked for exercising his freedom of speech on the college campus that he was enrolled in, set to graduate from and was authorized to live on? Because Israel. Nice.
Like I said, just take it off campus. His protest got him kicked off campus, detained, arrested, immigration status in question, and likely lost him his masters degree. I do not call that a smart move to make your point. The UN is not that far away. Go protest there. Find the Israeli embassy. Sit in the middle of the quad at an ivy league private university and do not be surprised if you are removed or detained by security or the police. Just not a smart move.
I guess we know who the brown shirt shock troops are. This will not end well.
Pro-Israel group says it has ‘deportation list’ and has sent ‘thousands’ of names to Trump officials
Betar US is among far-right groups supporting Trump effort to deport students involved in pro-Palestinian protests
A far-right group that claimed credit for the arrest of a Palestinian activist and permanent US resident who the Trump administration is seeking to deport claims it has submitted “thousands of names” for similar treatment.
Betar US is one of a number of rightwing, pro-Israel groups that are supporting the administration’s efforts to deport international students involved in university pro-Palestinian protests, an effort that escalated this week with the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, an activist who recently completed his graduate studies at Columbia University.
This week, Donald Trump said Khalil’s arrest was just “the first of many to come”. Betar US quickly claimed credit on social media for providing Khalil’s name to the government.
Betar, which has been labelled an extremist group by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a Jewish advocacy group, said on Monday that it had “been working on deportations and will continue to do so”, and warned that the effort would extend beyond immigrants. “Expect naturalized citizens to start being picked up within the month,” the group’s post on X read. (It is very difficult to revoke US citizenship, though Trump has indicated an intention to try.)
The group has compiled a so-called “deportation list” naming individuals it believes are in the US on visas and have participated in pro-Palestinian protests, claiming these individuals “terrorize America”.
A Betar spokesperson, Daniel Levy, said in a statement to the Guardian that Betar submitted “thousands of names” of students and faculty they believe to be on visas from institutions like Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, UCLA, Syracuse University and others to representatives of the Trump administration.
The group claims to have “documentation, including tapes, social media and more” to support their actions. It claims to be sharing names with several high-ranking officials, including the secretary of state, Marco Rubio; the White House homeland security adviser, Stephen Miller; and the attorney general, Pam Bondi, among others.
The White House and state department did not respond to questions about whether they are working with Betar or other groups to identify students for deportation.
Ross Glick, who was the executive director of the US chapter of Betar until last month, told the Guardian that the list began forming last fall. He noted that when they started compiling names, it was unclear who the next president would be, but that the change in administrations had been beneficial to their initiative.
The arrest of Khalil last week, who served as a lead negotiator for the Gazasolidarity encampment at Columbia University, aligned with Trump’s executive order aimed at combatting antisemitism. An accompanying fact sheet pledged the administration would cancel the student visas of those identified as “Hamas sympathizers” and deport those who participated in “pro-jihadist protests”.
After the election, Glick said he met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill, including the Democratic senator John Fetterman and aides to the Republican senators Ted Cruz and James Lankford, all of whom, he said, supported the efforts.
In a phone call this week, Glick said he discussed Khalil with Cruz in Washington DC just days before he was arrested.
Cruz’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the meeting with Glick.
Glick said that the individuals on Betar’s list were identified through tips from students, faculty and staff on these campuses, along with social media research. He also claimed he had received support from “collaborators” who use “facial recognition AI-based technology” to help identify protesters that can even identify people wearing face coverings. He declined to elaborate on the specific technology used.
Glick mentioned that in recent months he had been inundated with messages from students, professors and university administrators across the country, all providing him with information on protesters’ identities. He said that he vetted the legitimacy of those tips and that he believed Khalil and other pro-Palestinian protesters were “promoting the eradication, the destruction and the devolution of western civilization”.
Glick described Khalil as an “operative”. When asked who he was an operative for, he responded: “Well, that has to be determined.”
Khalil is being held in a Louisiana detention center after being moved from New York. His detention is being challenged in a Manhattan federal court.
The arrest has sparked outrage and alarm from free-speech advocates who see the move to deport Khalil as a flagrant violation of his free speech rights and on Wednesday, protests erupted outside the Manhattan courthouse, where hundreds gathered demanding his freedom.
Betar is not alone in its efforts to support Trump’s deportation campaign, an effort that has divided American Jews in whose name the administration is purporting to act.
In the days leading up to his arrest, videos featuring Khalil and others at a sit-in at Barnard against the expulsion of two students who disrupted a class on Israel began circulating on social media.
Pro-Israel social-media accounts, including that of Shai Davidai, a vocal assistant professor at Columbia’s business school who was temporarily barred from campus last year after the school said he repeatedly intimidated and harassed university employees, identified Khalil and tagged Rubio in posts urging him to revoke his visa and deport him.
The video of Khalil that was circulating was first posted by Canary Mission, an online database that publishes the names and personal information of people that it considers to be anti-Israel or antisemitic, focusing mainly on those at universities across the US.
When Khalil was arrested, Canary Mission said that it was “delighted that our exposure of Mahmoud Khalil’s hatred has led to such deserved consequences”, adding that it had “more Columbia news on its way”.
On Monday afternoon, Canary Mission released a video naming five other students and faculty it believes should be deported.
It was revealed this week by Zeteo that Khalil had emailed Columbia University the day before his arrest, appealing for protection and telling the university’s interim president that he was being subjected to a “dehumanizing doxxing campaign” that week led by Davidai and David Lederer, a Columbia student.
“Their attacks have incited a wave of hate, including calls for my deportation and death threats,” Khalil said.
He added: “I haven’t been able to sleep, fearing that Ice or a dangerous individual might come to my home. I urgently need legal support, and I urge you to intervene and provide the necessary protections to prevent further harm.”
In another email, Khalil reportedly cited a threatening post by Betar, in which the group claimed he said: “Zionists don’t deserve to live.” Khalil “unequivocally” denied ever saying that.
In that post, Betar wrote that Ice was “aware of his home address and whereabouts” and said it had “provided all his information to multiple contacts”.
After the arrest, Karoline Leavitt, the spokesperson for the White House, said that Columbia University had been given the “names of other individuals who have engaged in pro-Hamas activity” but said that the school was “refusing to help DHS identify those individuals on campus”.
‘A moment of reckoning’
Khalil’s arrest has divided American Jews, many of whom have harshly condemned the activist’s arrest.
The ADL, a group that describes its focus as fighting antisemitism and all forms of hate and that is also known to view campus protests as antisemitic, welcomed the escalation and said it appreciated “the Trump administration’s broad, bold set of efforts to counter campus antisemitism.
“Obviously, any deportation action or revocation of a Green Card or visa must be undertaken in alignment with required due process protections,” the group said. It added: “We also hope that this action serves as a deterrent to others who might consider breaking the law on college campuses or anywhere.”
But many mainstream, progressive and leftwing Jewish groups have condemned the administration’s actions as a dangerous violation of free speech.
“It is both possible and necessary to directly confront and address the crisis of antisemitism, on campus and across our communities, without abandoning the fundamental democratic values that have allowed Jews, and so many others, to thrive here,” said Amy Spitalnick, head of the liberal Jewish Council for Public Affairs.
In a letter on Thursday to the US Department of Homeland Security, several groups including the New York Jewish Agenda, Aleph: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, Habonim Dror North America and others, said that they were “deeply disturbed by the circumstances surrounding the apprehension and detention of Mahmoud Khalil”.
“Irrespective of the content of Mr Khalil’s speech, we firmly believe that his arrest does nothing to make Jews safer,” the groups said. “In the past, laws and policies that limit the right to free speech have often been wielded against the Jewish community, and we are worried that we are seeing signs that they are being wielded against Muslim, Arab, and other minority communities now.”
David Myers, a distinguished professor and the Sady and Ludwig Kahn chair in Jewish history at the University of California Los Angeles, told the Guardian he believed the Trump administration was instrumentalizing and weaponizing “antisemitism for political gain”.
“I think ultimately, [the administration] is interested in something larger than defending Jewish students, it’s really interested in bringing the university to its knees as a way of removing a key liberal, progressive actor from the American political game,” he said.
Myers described Betar’s decision to compile a list of people to be deported as “horrifying” but “not a total surprise”, he said, given what Betar has historically represented, which he called an “embrace of Jewish fascism”.
“I find it distasteful, un-Jewish and collaborationist to forge together lists of people who fail to meet a political litmus test,” Myers said.
He believes universities should resist pressure from the government and uphold the principles of fairness and democracy.
“It’s a moment of reckoning about where one’s values really lie,” he said.
“If universities submit, that’s removing an extraordinarily important site of free and open thinking from the American political conversation. I think that would be very ominous for this country, a further step in the move towards a fully authoritarian regime.”
It is your quote from the New Yorker. Why would a 30 year old be living, or even visiting, campus housing? What was his right to be there?
Guess you’re not familiar with campus housing, graduate students, PhD candidates, etc? Lots of reasons but maybe, just maybe because he fucking lived there and was scheduled to graduate from a masters program in May, maybe? From wiki:
Khalil completed work on his master's degree in December 2024 and was due to graduate in May 2025.[20][21]As a student, he interned for UNRWA, a United Nations relief agency that supports Palestinian refugees.[16]
I am very familiar. I have a kid in college and a graduate degree. Most full time students move off campus after their junior year as an undergrad. A masters takes two years unless you are only taking part time classes over many years. That is not a PHD program. Usually you cannot get student housing if you are part time or just taking night classes. But hey it is NYC so why not take advantage of student housing for as long as you can?
It's a married couple both loving on campus, in family campus housing presumably. I work at a university. This living arrangement for older students isn't strange in the least.
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How antisemitism avoided the fate of antiracism
The promotion of Israel’s national narrative remains exempt from Trump’s wholesale attack on DEI
On 7 March, the Trump administration announced that it had cancelled $400m in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University, saying the school’s “Jewish students have faced relentless violence, intimidation, and antisemitic harassment on their campuses” and that “universities must comply with all federal anti-discrimination laws if they are going to receive federal funding”.
The “harassment” leveraged by the president and other pro-Israel ideologues was a reference to the paradigm-setting pro-Palestinian activism that energized the campus over the past year. Columbia’s students became national leaders in the anti-genocide movement, and the Gaza solidarity encampment they established garnered international attention – including from the US Congress, which held hearings on so-called “campus antisemitism”.
Trump’s cynical attempt to protect an allegedly vulnerable class of students came just after executive orders banning diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs – initiatives whose prime directive has historically been to ensure equal opportunity for marginalized groups – within institutions that receive federal funding. In the first few months of his presidency, Trump has augmented the “Palestine exception” – that amorphous but consequential social limitation of the first amendment that enables suppression of pro-Palestinian/anti-Zionist speech – with an “Israel exception” from DEI prohibitions. In effect, the promotion of Israel’s national narrative not only remains exempt from the wholesale attack on DEI, but it also functions as a weapon used to attack people and communities previously protected.
The current blow to Columbia’s funding came after a culmination of administrative efforts to pander to Trump’s war on DEI, beginning with the removal of Columbia athletics’ transgender inclusion policy from its website in early February, followed soon after with the altering of DEI language on a number of Columbia websites, and a directive to department chairs to “temporarily” remove any “DEI language” from departmental websites.
Where did this cowardly compliance, this last-ditch effort at saving the university from federal funding cuts, get the school? Columbia’s leadership has transformed the institution into an international laughingstock, a rudderless ship, poorer in every way – from its balance sheet to its moral vision. And after more than a year of many powerful Zionists purposefully conflating the way that some Jewish students feel unsafe on campus with actual danger, we have now witnessed a Palestinian student, Mahmoud Khalil, literally being abducted from New York to a detention center across state borders notorious for its mistreatment of detainees.
The ground for Trump’s attacks on Columbia has been well prepared by all manner of Zionist Jewish entities – with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) at the front, as usual. The ADL has come under sustained criticism in recent years for the ways it has used the halo effect of its origins as a civil rights organization to support racist policing, surveil progressive groups and cozy up to actual antisemites who happen to also be supporters of Israel.
But the group has been joined by a range of swaggering actors: the newly emboldened Kahanist group Betar Worldwide; Columbia’s own professor Shai Davidai, who has terrorized numerous Arab and Arab American students, including Mahmoud Khalil just before his kidnapping; and Zionist Jewish alumni groups. All have conspired to gin up a topsy-turvy mythology of what they call a crisis of “campus antisemitism”, but which is really a reactionary crisis surrounding the increasing popularity of campus anti-Zionism.
As a father and daughter who represent two generations of anti-Zionist Jewish scholars and activists – one of us a professor at University of Massachusetts Boston, and the other a graduate student at Columbia University – it seems manifest that we are witnessing a purposeful and devastating bait and switch. Every articulation of anti-Israel speech (or even the simplest affirmation of Palestinian human rights) gets recoded as dangerous antisemitic action.
Columbia University now serves the Trumpist agenda of ‘free speech except Palestine’ and ‘free of DEI except Zionism’
The “Israel exception” to DEI means that the university’s post-October 7 antisemitism taskforce, formed on the pretext of protecting Jews on campus, was never paired with an Islamophobia or anti-Arab taskforce, despite the fact that Arab and Muslim students have been continually subjected to doxing campaigns from far-right organizations such as Canary Mission and Accuracy in Media, and singled out in a WhatsApp group comprising faculty, administrators, students, alumni and parents seeking to persecute student activists and get them deported.
The “Israel exception” means that the faculty member Gil Zussman remains on the taskforce even after it was exposed that he is part of the WhatsApp group actively putting student’s lives at risk. Meanwhile, the longtime pro-Palestinian Columbia law professor Katherine Franke was essentially forced out of her tenured position for what many saw as a relatively minor speech infraction.
The “Israel exception” means that the antisemitism taskforce only concerns itself with certain kinds of Jews; anti-Zionist Jews do not register in the furrowed-brow rhetoric of university administrators, politicians or self-appointed Jewish community leaders, except as a problem to be eradicated. Columbia University is now at the vanguard of our political and cultural moment, serving the Trumpist agenda of “free speech except Palestine” and “free of DEI except Zionism”.
What is most significant in the focused dismantling of DEI protocols is how Jewishness and Zionism has been spared. The banned word list issued by the National Science Foundation includes terms from “disabled” to “transgender” to “racism”, but no censoring of anything having to do with Zionism, Israel or Jews. As civil rights gains having to do with race, gender, ability and sexuality are rolled back, it has become exceedingly clear that the animus is not against DEI protocols and protections per se: Zionist Jews will remain a specially protected class. This serves the Republican party in ways concerning foreign policy, the cultural wars and electoral politics, and stands as the culmination of over a year’s worth of moral panic over the “safety” of Jewish students on college campuses.
The writer Lucien Baskin outlined this moral panic in an article that argues the current hysteria has roots in both liberal and rightwing premises. Baskin explains that for liberals, the putative antisemitism crisis is one more articulation of their understanding of racism as rooted in bad individual acts, rather than systemic injustice. On the right, the antisemitism hysteria is a Trojan horse for well-organized and well-funded attacks on American education at all levels – targeting libraries, secondary school curricula, and university teaching and publishing.
The basic premise that influential Zionists have been promoting is that widespread pro-Palestinian activity on campuses across the country proves that US universities are essentially anti-Zionist institutions and that anti-Zionism is antisemitic. This promotion has happened as pro-Palestinian students have been doxed and had job offers rescinded, as three Palestinian students were shot in a hate crime in Vermont, and as pro-Palestinian professors have been fired.
The US has a legible history of antisemitism, but American antisemitism has never been a sustained systemic force in our history – like the way that anti-Black racism has been, for instance. There have been plenty of isolated antisemitic acts (up to and including lynching) and plenty of anti-Jewish thought and expression in the US. But by and large Jews have been remarkably safe in the United States. When Jews have faced sustained antisemitism there has almost always been a powerful white Christian man at the wheel, from Henry Ford to the radio preacher Charles Coughlin to Donald Trump.
We are in a moment when many Jewish Americans and their rightwing allies have strategically weaponized the history of European antisemitism, and the more episodic American version, to prosecute a case against free speech and academic freedom. It is a deft trick that has been staged by powerful figures from the campus of Columbia University to the Oval Office, and one that is familiar to anyone who has read Amy Kaplan’s work on the Americanization of Zionism. Depicting Israelis as “invincible victims”, at once always under attack yet also preternaturally powerful, this social project of having the most cake and eating it too is turning out to be one of the most consequential political formations of our era.
This is one of many reasons we have to pay attention to the current “campus antisemitism” crisis – because ultimately it is doing two major things at once: it is distracting us from the genocide and continued siege of Gaza, and it is obscuring the reality of relative safety for American Jews in favor of a hyped-up narrative of fraught vulnerability. This almost certainly will not – as the idiom puts it – be good for the Jews. As pawns in a larger game being run by Christian Zionists (who often happen to be white supremacists), the safety of American Jews, Zionist or not, is hardly the endgame.
Jeff Melnick is a professor of American studies at UMass Boston
Jessie Lee Rubin is a PhD candidate in ethnomusicology at Columbia University
https://apple.news/AvWROnQsYT4Wyuh8hiPQ7Tg
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The protesters broke a long list of laws. They were our guests here. They deserve their day in court. The government has the right to determine whether they violated terms of the privilege granted to them.
yes or no.
previous statements leave a strong impression.
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-EV 8/14/93
The “accused” used to have rights in ‘Murica. Not anymore.
And in case you forgot, “policing” is part of the “legal system.” Good lord are we so fucked.
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What’s more, the “adverse foreign policy consequences” argument for deporting Khalil is vague enough that it could in theory extend not just to any international student who participated in the Gaza protests, but just about any non-citizen protesting on behalf of the Palestinians – or, indeed, any other issue the government declares to be a “foreign policy” aim. The legal journal Just Security points out: “If the government has an objective to promote fossil fuel use across the globe, for example, then the secretary of state could deem climate science advocates – or even non-citizens who own green technology firms – deportable on the ground that their residency ‘undermines the policy objective’ of promoting fossil fuels.”
-EV 8/14/93
Last Saturday evening, a recent Columbia University graduate student named Mahmoud Khalilwas greeted in the lobby of his apartment building, in Morningside Heights, by four plainclothes agents from the Department of Homeland Security. They said that his student visa had been revoked and that he was being arrested, with a plan to deport him. Khalil, a Syrian-born Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent, had been a leader of the pro-Palestine protests that consumed Columbia’s campus life last year. He called his lawyer Amy Greer, and she spoke with one of the agents. When Greer told him that Khalil did not have or need a student visa, because he is a permanent U.S. resident with a green card, the agent said that D.H.S. had revoked his green card, too. When Greer asked to see the warrant, the agent hung up.
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Khalil is thirty years old, has earned a master’s degree in public administration, and once interned at the United Nations. (His wife, an American citizen of Syrian descent, is about to give birth.) Within the protests that he was associated with, a university task force found a “serious and pervasive” atmosphere of antisemitism, in which Jewish students were targeted and harassed. But Khalil had served as an interlocutor with the university administration, and in public statements he disavowed antisemitism and insisted that a change in the government of Israel would represent liberation for Palestinians and Jews alike. Was this really the fight the TrumpAdministration wanted to pick?
As it turned out, once the Administration explained what it was up to, this was exactly the fight it wanted. “The allegation here is not that he was breaking the law,” a White House official told the Free Press. A statement from D.H.S. said, vaguely, that Khalil had “led activities aligned to Hamas,” wording that smudges the crucial distinction between antisemitism and opposition to Israeli policy. The government’s deportation order relied on an obscure 1952 immigration statute that allows the Secretary of State to revoke permanent residency from anyone he judges to be undermining U.S. foreign policy. The Administration seemed prepared to argue that Khalil’s “continued presence in this country,” as the Times put it, made the American goal of combatting antisemitism more difficult. No specific actions were even alleged; Khalil was evidently being deported simply because the Administration did not like what he had to say.
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The fucking excuses.
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Khalil completed work on his master's degree in December 2024 and was due to graduate in May 2025.[20][21]As a student, he interned for UNRWA, a United Nations relief agency that supports Palestinian refugees.[16]
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https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/17/middleeast/israel-strikes-gaza-hamas-ceasefire-intl-hnk/index.html
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I am very familiar. I have a kid in college and a graduate degree. Most full time students move off campus after their junior year as an undergrad. A masters takes two years unless you are only taking part time classes over many years. That is not a PHD program. Usually you cannot get student housing if you are part time or just taking night classes. But hey it is NYC so why not take advantage of student housing for as long as you can?
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Pro-Israel group says it has ‘deportation list’ and has sent ‘thousands’ of names to Trump officials
Betar US is among far-right groups supporting Trump effort to deport students involved in pro-Palestinian protests
A far-right group that claimed credit for the arrest of a Palestinian activist and permanent US resident who the Trump administration is seeking to deport claims it has submitted “thousands of names” for similar treatment.
Betar US is one of a number of rightwing, pro-Israel groups that are supporting the administration’s efforts to deport international students involved in university pro-Palestinian protests, an effort that escalated this week with the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, an activist who recently completed his graduate studies at Columbia University.
This week, Donald Trump said Khalil’s arrest was just “the first of many to come”. Betar US quickly claimed credit on social media for providing Khalil’s name to the government.
Betar, which has been labelled an extremist group by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a Jewish advocacy group, said on Monday that it had “been working on deportations and will continue to do so”, and warned that the effort would extend beyond immigrants. “Expect naturalized citizens to start being picked up within the month,” the group’s post on X read. (It is very difficult to revoke US citizenship, though Trump has indicated an intention to try.)
The group has compiled a so-called “deportation list” naming individuals it believes are in the US on visas and have participated in pro-Palestinian protests, claiming these individuals “terrorize America”.
A Betar spokesperson, Daniel Levy, said in a statement to the Guardian that Betar submitted “thousands of names” of students and faculty they believe to be on visas from institutions like Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, UCLA, Syracuse University and others to representatives of the Trump administration.
The group claims to have “documentation, including tapes, social media and more” to support their actions. It claims to be sharing names with several high-ranking officials, including the secretary of state, Marco Rubio; the White House homeland security adviser, Stephen Miller; and the attorney general, Pam Bondi, among others.
The White House and state department did not respond to questions about whether they are working with Betar or other groups to identify students for deportation.
Ross Glick, who was the executive director of the US chapter of Betar until last month, told the Guardian that the list began forming last fall. He noted that when they started compiling names, it was unclear who the next president would be, but that the change in administrations had been beneficial to their initiative.
During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly vowed to deport foreign students involved in pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses and frequently framed demonstrations against Israel’s actions in Gaza as expressions of support for Hamas. Last week, it was reported that the US state department plans to use AI to identify foreign students for deportation.
The arrest of Khalil last week, who served as a lead negotiator for the Gaza solidarity encampment at Columbia University, aligned with Trump’s executive order aimed at combatting antisemitism. An accompanying fact sheet pledged the administration would cancel the student visas of those identified as “Hamas sympathizers” and deport those who participated in “pro-jihadist protests”.
After the election, Glick said he met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill, including the Democratic senator John Fetterman and aides to the Republican senators Ted Cruz and James Lankford, all of whom, he said, supported the efforts.
In a phone call this week, Glick said he discussed Khalil with Cruz in Washington DC just days before he was arrested.
Cruz’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the meeting with Glick.
Glick said that the individuals on Betar’s list were identified through tips from students, faculty and staff on these campuses, along with social media research. He also claimed he had received support from “collaborators” who use “facial recognition AI-based technology” to help identify protesters that can even identify people wearing face coverings. He declined to elaborate on the specific technology used.
Glick mentioned that in recent months he had been inundated with messages from students, professors and university administrators across the country, all providing him with information on protesters’ identities. He said that he vetted the legitimacy of those tips and that he believed Khalil and other pro-Palestinian protesters were “promoting the eradication, the destruction and the devolution of western civilization”.
Glick described Khalil as an “operative”. When asked who he was an operative for, he responded: “Well, that has to be determined.”
Khalil is being held in a Louisiana detention center after being moved from New York. His detention is being challenged in a Manhattan federal court.
The arrest has sparked outrage and alarm from free-speech advocates who see the move to deport Khalil as a flagrant violation of his free speech rights and on Wednesday, protests erupted outside the Manhattan courthouse, where hundreds gathered demanding his freedom.
Betar is not alone in its efforts to support Trump’s deportation campaign, an effort that has divided American Jews in whose name the administration is purporting to act.
In the days leading up to his arrest, videos featuring Khalil and others at a sit-in at Barnard against the expulsion of two students who disrupted a class on Israel began circulating on social media.
Pro-Israel social-media accounts, including that of Shai Davidai, a vocal assistant professor at Columbia’s business school who was temporarily barred from campus last year after the school said he repeatedly intimidated and harassed university employees, identified Khalil and tagged Rubio in posts urging him to revoke his visa and deport him.
The video of Khalil that was circulating was first posted by Canary Mission, an online database that publishes the names and personal information of people that it considers to be anti-Israel or antisemitic, focusing mainly on those at universities across the US.
When Khalil was arrested, Canary Mission said that it was “delighted that our exposure of Mahmoud Khalil’s hatred has led to such deserved consequences”, adding that it had “more Columbia news on its way”.
On Monday afternoon, Canary Mission released a video naming five other students and faculty it believes should be deported.
It was revealed this week by Zeteo that Khalil had emailed Columbia University the day before his arrest, appealing for protection and telling the university’s interim president that he was being subjected to a “dehumanizing doxxing campaign” that week led by Davidai and David Lederer, a Columbia student.
“Their attacks have incited a wave of hate, including calls for my deportation and death threats,” Khalil said.
He added: “I haven’t been able to sleep, fearing that Ice or a dangerous individual might come to my home. I urgently need legal support, and I urge you to intervene and provide the necessary protections to prevent further harm.”
In another email, Khalil reportedly cited a threatening post by Betar, in which the group claimed he said: “Zionists don’t deserve to live.” Khalil “unequivocally” denied ever saying that.
In that post, Betar wrote that Ice was “aware of his home address and whereabouts” and said it had “provided all his information to multiple contacts”.
After the arrest, Karoline Leavitt, the spokesperson for the White House, said that Columbia University had been given the “names of other individuals who have engaged in pro-Hamas activity” but said that the school was “refusing to help DHS identify those individuals on campus”.
‘A moment of reckoning’
Khalil’s arrest has divided American Jews, many of whom have harshly condemned the activist’s arrest.
The ADL, a group that describes its focus as fighting antisemitism and all forms of hate and that is also known to view campus protests as antisemitic, welcomed the escalation and said it appreciated “the Trump administration’s broad, bold set of efforts to counter campus antisemitism.
“Obviously, any deportation action or revocation of a Green Card or visa must be undertaken in alignment with required due process protections,” the group said. It added: “We also hope that this action serves as a deterrent to others who might consider breaking the law on college campuses or anywhere.”
But many mainstream, progressive and leftwing Jewish groups have condemned the administration’s actions as a dangerous violation of free speech.
“It is both possible and necessary to directly confront and address the crisis of antisemitism, on campus and across our communities, without abandoning the fundamental democratic values that have allowed Jews, and so many others, to thrive here,” said Amy Spitalnick, head of the liberal Jewish Council for Public Affairs.
In a letter on Thursday to the US Department of Homeland Security, several groups including the New York Jewish Agenda, Aleph: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, Habonim Dror North America and others, said that they were “deeply disturbed by the circumstances surrounding the apprehension and detention of Mahmoud Khalil”.
“Irrespective of the content of Mr Khalil’s speech, we firmly believe that his arrest does nothing to make Jews safer,” the groups said. “In the past, laws and policies that limit the right to free speech have often been wielded against the Jewish community, and we are worried that we are seeing signs that they are being wielded against Muslim, Arab, and other minority communities now.”
David Myers, a distinguished professor and the Sady and Ludwig Kahn chair in Jewish history at the University of California Los Angeles, told the Guardian he believed the Trump administration was instrumentalizing and weaponizing “antisemitism for political gain”.
“I think ultimately, [the administration] is interested in something larger than defending Jewish students, it’s really interested in bringing the university to its knees as a way of removing a key liberal, progressive actor from the American political game,” he said.
Myers described Betar’s decision to compile a list of people to be deported as “horrifying” but “not a total surprise”, he said, given what Betar has historically represented, which he called an “embrace of Jewish fascism”.
“I find it distasteful, un-Jewish and collaborationist to forge together lists of people who fail to meet a political litmus test,” Myers said.
He believes universities should resist pressure from the government and uphold the principles of fairness and democracy.
“It’s a moment of reckoning about where one’s values really lie,” he said.
“If universities submit, that’s removing an extraordinarily important site of free and open thinking from the American political conversation. I think that would be very ominous for this country, a further step in the move towards a fully authoritarian regime.”
https://apple.news/A_KSK9bdRTLuUWhIem2VwRg
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Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14