Ready. Fire. Aim: Why The Mahmoud Khalil Case May Backfire

In the name of protecting Jews, the administration’s effort to deport a pro-Hamas activist leader may have the opposite effect.

Sympathy for a supporter of a terror group: The arrest of the pro-Hamas activist has become a major rallying point for many.

Leave it to the Trump team’s gang-that-couldn’t-shoot-straight to make a hero-martyr out of a leading pro-Hamas activist at Columbia University who justifies Hamas terrorism as “armed resistance, which,” he says, “is legitimate under international law, but Israel calls it terrorism.”

To be clear, I abhor the politics of Mahmoud Khalil, an outspoken leader of the coalition of pro-Hamas groups that turned the Columbia University campus into a battleground last spring. And I am grateful that the Trump administration has pledged to combat anti-Semitism and protect Jewish students on campus. But to date, it appears that choosing Khalil as the test case for squelching campus anti-Semitism via deportation – with promises of many more such efforts at other universities – may have been a mistake.

When immigration officials arrested Khalil in the lobby of his apartment on March 8, they thought he had a student visa. In fact, though, he had recently received a green card as a permanent resident, raising the bar for deportation. Liberal defenders of Khalil point out that he was not charged with any specific crime. They assert that the key issue here is freedom of speech, a foundational element of democracy whether or not one agrees with positions expressed, and therefore campus protests are protected by the Constitution.

As a result, Khalil has widely been portrayed as a victim of the Trump administration's new war on liberal culture in general, elite universities in particular, and especially Columbia University, where he was a graduate student. His plight has made headlines nationally. There have been mass demonstrations on his behalf, and more than 800,000 people have signed a petition calling for his release.

But the administration contends that freedom of speech is not the issue here. Rather, it is aligning with a terror organization, in this case Hamas, and prohibited by law. The government cites as a precedent for its action the Immigration and Nationality Act that allows for expelling aliens “whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”

While the debate goes on over whether Khalil’s actions could have such an effect on American foreign policy, critics strongly question the administration’s true motives. “The rise of anti-Semitism on campus since October 7, 2023, is real,” wrote Adam Serwer in The Atlantic. “But the Republican campaign to use it as a justification to extend political control over universities has nothing to do with protecting Jews, and everything to do with undermining liberal democracy.”

Timely coincidence? Columbia’s SJP (Students for Justice in Palestine) had no posts on Instagram from May 16, 2023 for almost six monnths. It announced its return on October 6 — the day before the Hamas attack on Israel. It read: “We are back!! First general body meeting to be announced soon. Stay tuned.”

Khalil’s detention came on the heels of the administration freezing $400 million in grants to Columbia after the university’s inability or unwillingness to act firmly in halting pro-Hamas protests and encampments on campus last year. A detailed report by Columbia University Task Force on Anti-Semitism, based on “heartbreaking” testimonials from nearly 500 Jewish and Israeli students, found that “the University community has not treated them with the standards of civility, respect, and fairness it promises to all its students.” The report cited “multiple instances of harassment, verbal abuse and ostracism, and in some cases physical violence.”

A Columbia professor I spoke with this week said the government erred in how it went about charging Khalil,“but they [immigration officials] chose the right guy to go after.” This may come as a surprise to some. It’s easy to see why much of the mainstream media has largely portrayed Khalil, whose wife is expecting their first child in a few weeks, in sympathetic terms. He does not fit the image of the masked, rough protesters who physically threatened, and sometimes harmed, Jewish students at Columbia and on other campuses around the country. A lengthy New York Times profile described him as a “measured leader at rallies” and “the adult in the room,” citing “friends and family” in highlighting his thoughtful, reserved manner, though passionate and demanding in negotiations with the university that ultimately failed.

But the coalition he leads, Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), calls Israel a genocidal, apartheid state that is committing ethnic cleansing in Gaza. In its literature, the coalition envisions a global revolution against imperialism, including the United States, and replacing Israel with Palestine.

A few days before being detained, Khalil was filmed taking part in a protest at Barnard, Columbia’s sister school, where several dozen people interrupted class schedules and refused to leave for hours. This participation alone could qualify as grounds for deportation, according to some close observers.

Shai Davidai, an Israeli professor who has been outspoken in calling out the pro-Hamas camp, wrote on X: “Illegally taking over a college in which you are not even enrolled and distributing terrorist propaganda should be a deportable offense, no?” Similarly, the professor I spoke with, who requested anonymity in light of the delicate situation, said he does not support “deporting people for their political views, but trespassing at Barnard is a crime,” which could be grounds for deportation.

A comparison of the demands made on Columbia by the Trump administration regarding admissions, student discipline and enforcing existing security-related policies finds that they are largely in sync with recommendations made by the university’s own Task Force on Anti-Semitism. They both include calling for defining anti-Semitism, implementing clear rules regarding protests and disciplinary actions for violations. The task force report emphasized its call for training sessions for teaching assistants as well as students in anti-bias and inclusion.

A point of contention for the university is the government’s insistence on a plan of reform for undergraduate and graduate student admissions, and a proposal for academic receivership for three departments --Middle East, South Asian and African studies– for a minimum of five years.

Compliance with the government’s terms would lead to reinstating the $400 million freeze.

The professor I spoke with said the loss of funds would be “catastrophic,” and that university reforms would be more effective if developed internally rather than imposed. He credited the university administration for taking a harder line on campus protests this semester but said many of its existing policies should have been addressed before last spring’s chaos and implemented at the time.

At the end of the day, unfortunately, but not surprisingly, we in the Jewish community find ourselves in a difficult, if not impossible, position. We either look like we are so committed to ridding campuses of pro-Hamas inciters that we’re willing to ignore violations of free speech, or we are so devoted to upholding the Constitution – recognizing that historically Jews thrive in democratic societies – that we turn our heads at virulent anti-Israel actions.

Over the centuries, many countries have blamed civil unrest and violence on the victim of the upheaval, the Jews. It hasn’t happened in the world’s first democracy. But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t.

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