The Donald Trump administration’s arrest of prominent anti-genocide protester Mahmoud Khalil has sparked mass resistance. There are serious concerns about the dangerous precedent it sets, and the potential consequences if the government’s efforts are successful.
Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden set the ball rolling by allowing the repression and demonisation of students protesting Israel’s genocide in Gaza in 2024. But the current US government significantly escalated this anti-democratic climate when it sent plain clothes agents to abduct Khalil at the weekend. Though a legal, permanent resident in the US, he may now face deportation as a result of his political speech.
Why is Trump targeting Mahmoud Khalil?
As Georgetown University professor Nader Hashemi told Al Jazeera, the Trump regime is claiming its efforts are about fighting antisemitism, but in reality constituted:
an effort to silence all public expression of support for Palestinian human rights to placate right-wing supporters of Israel within the Republican Party
Government figures and supporters have spoken about Mahmoud Khalil’s case using words and phrases like “Hamas supporters”, “activities aligned to Hamas”, “pro-Hamas“. But as journalist Glenn Greenwald pointed out:
One of the many problems with targeting legal US residents for the grave crime of “pro-Hamas” speech or protest is that many Israel supporters — perhaps most — consider everyone to be “pro-Hamas” who protests the US-financed Israeli war on Gaza. It would effectively ban that.
There have been allegations that he “distributed materials supporting terrorism” and was “paid by a terrorist organisation”, but evidence of criminal activity has not yet emerged. The absence of proof suggests that the government’s actions go against the US constitution. The Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) campaign group, for example, has called Khalil’s arrest “blatantly unconstitutional”, stressing that:
It is endangering Jewish people and using the guise of fighting antisemitism to dismantle our Constitutionally protected rights to free speech and dissent.
Greenwald has reminded people, meanwhile, that the constitution “applies to all people legally on US soil”.
An alarming precedent
One student has spoken highly of Mahmoud Khalil online, saying:
as a Jewish student at Columbia i can say without a single doubt in my mind that Mahmoud is one of the kindest, safest, most welcoming people i have ever encountered at this university. his presence brought an instant calm no matter how intense things were.
But because of his role protesting against Columbia‘s complicity with Israel’s genocide, he became a target of pro-Israel agitators, a pro-Israel professor, and government spies, with the alleged collaboration of the university.
As prize-winning author Spencer Ackerman has written, the post-9/11 order has made “advocacy for Palestinians” and their right to live “deliberately indistinguishable from “activities aligned to” Hamas”.
Free speech groups and progressive Jewish groups have called out the cynical political weaponisation of antisemitism or terrorism allegations to supress protest and censor free speech:
https:/twitter.com/jewishaction/status/1899243803841609762
https://twitter.com/OnlinePalEng/status/1899438657536205040
JVP, for instance, insisted:
The detention of Mahmoud is further proof that we are on the brink of a full takeover by a repressive, authoritarian regime…
This is how fascism works and the only defense is to refuse to be divided or silenced.
Anti-war group Code Pink, meanwhile, stressed:
Trump says he is “the first of many.” If we don’t fight back now, what stops them from coming for you next? This is how fascism works, it pushes until people push back.
Stand up for Mahmoud Khalil
Khalil once told CNN that:
As a Palestinian student, I believe that the liberation of the Palestinian people and the Jewish people are intertwined and go hand-by-hand and you cannot achieve one without the other
And now, over two million people have signed a letter calling for Mahmoud Khalil’s release. 10 March, meanwhile, saw hundreds of people take to the streets in solidarity with him:
https://twitter.com/GerardDalbon/status/1899214577595826623
https:/twitter.com/SuppressedNws/status/1899207776770920875
https://twitter.com/FranceskAlbs/status/1899350646278807899
https://twitter.com/BTnewsroom/status/1899252659481129268
A federal judge has stopped Trump’s government from deporting Khalil for now, but another hearing will take place on 12 March.
There will be another protest in New York later today (11 March):
https://twitter.com/PAL_Awda/status/1899278124665188725
