Opinion

Charlie Kirk doesn't feel safe in Bethlehem. It's his worldview that's to blame, not my city.

(RNS) — To Charlie Kirk, Mike Huckabee and every Christian taught to fear my people and my city — come and see.

People move about their daily lives in Bethlehem in the West Bank. (Photo by Jorge Fernández Salas/Unsplash/Creative Commons)
Fares Abraham
April 1, 2025

(RNS) — During a recent campus Q&A, a Palestinian Christian student discussed U.S.-Israel relations with Charlie Kirk, executive director of evangelical Christian activist group Turning Point USA. Kirk asked the student at one point: “As me as a Christian, do you think it would be safe for me to walk the streets of Bethlehem without armed guards?” When the student confidently answered yes, Kirk rolled his eyes in disbelief.

That moment wasn’t just factually dubious — it was revealing. Kirk’s unspoken suggestion was that Palestinian Muslims are inherently hostile to Christians, ignoring the student’s affirmation — and the reality in Bethlehem — that, in the very town where Jesus was born, Christians continue to worship freely and have maintained an unbroken presence for two millennia. Suggesting otherwise, Kirk exposed a worldview shaped by fear and ideology.

The same posture is echoed by the Trump administration’s nominee to be ambassador to Israel, former Arkansas governor and evangelical pastor Mike Huckabee. At his March 25 confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Huckabee was asked about achieving a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians. He responded in part, “There has to be some recognition that there will be a change in the policy of educating (Palestinian) children to hate Jews.”

This is a slanderous distortion that vilifies an entire people. I was raised in the Palestinian education system in Bethlehem, was taught by Christian and Muslim educators alike and grew up forging friendships with people of all faiths, including Jewish and Messianic Jewish believers with whom I now partner in gospel ministry. If the curriculum I learned had taught hatred, it clearly failed.
RELATED: Why younger evangelical Christians are losing their faith in Israel

Contrary to Huckabee’s testimony, and the caricatures often presented in Western media, Palestinian youth in Bethlehem and elsewhere in the West Bank are not raised on a curriculum of hate. Yes, they learn about the Nakba, when Palestinians were forced out of what is now Israel. They learn the history of the reality they know firsthand: the ongoing occupation and the complex realities of checkpoints and land restrictions. But various Palestinian educators make active efforts to cultivate peace, critical thinking and coexistence.

Organizations such as Bethlehem Bible College offer academic and experiential programs to equip young people with the tools of nonviolence, restorative justice and cross-cultural understanding. Musalaha, a ministry rooted in biblical reconciliation, has worked for decades to bring together Israeli and Palestinian youth through camps, leadership development and storytelling. These and countless others are not signs of indoctrination, but signs of resilience and a longing for a just peace.

Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk speaks before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump during a campaign rally at Thomas & Mack Center, Oct. 24, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Huckabee’s and Kirk’s statements are not isolated gaffes; they come out of a shared ideological framework that fuses theology with geopolitics. At its core is the belief that Israel is not only a strategic American ally, but a moral extension of the West itself. By contrast, Palestinians are portrayed as inherently antisemitic or culturally regressive, unworthy of equal moral consideration. This binary narrative not only erases the complexities of the region, but it also dehumanizes millions of people — Christians like me as well as my Muslim neighbors — simply because we are Palestinian.

I was born and raised in Bethlehem. I’ve walked its streets my entire life — as a child, a minister, a father and a community leader. It was not my Muslim neighbors or fellow Palestinians I’ve feared, but the Israeli military patrols that entered our neighborhoods: tanks rolling down our streets, soldiers storming homes in the dead of night, armed with automatic rifles and impunity, the so-called “home-mapping operations,” in which soldiers invade Palestinian homes under the pretense of collecting layout data, leaving behind terrorized families and traumatized children.

I’ve seen that violence up close. An Israeli soldier once shot my mother in the back — unprovoked, without warning. I’ve buried teenage friends killed by Israeli fire. These weren’t terrorists. They were kids. They were neighbors. They were human beings. The fear we live with isn’t imagined — it’s lived. And yet we are the ones portrayed as dangerous.

Kirk, if he had any curiosity about Palestinians or Bethlehem, would know that the city is led by a Christian mayor, as are the leaders of several West Bank cities. The Palestinian Authority not only allows this; it mandates Christian leadership in places like Bethlehem to reflect the heritage and dignity of the local Christian population.

Palestinian scouts march during the Christian Orthodox Christmas Eve celebrations at the Church of the Nativity in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, the traditional birthplace of Jesus, Jan. 6, 2023. 

(AP Photo/ Nasser Nasser)

Christians make up just 2% of the West Bank’s population, but through quiet, faithful presence, our impact reaches far beyond our size. We help operate nearly one-third of all health care services, lead nearly half of the region’s NGOs, and serve in high-level government roles. Today, four Palestinian Authority cabinet members are Christians — including the official spokesman of the PA. Church-run organizations also rank as the third-largest employer in the occupied territories, providing vital services and jobs across communities. Ours is not a story of power, but of perseverance. We are few, but we are faithful, and our witness is undeniable.

Nobody would say Palestinian society is perfect. Our failures include corruption, political stagnation and factionalism, as well as the erosion of democratic life. More grievously, armed resistance has devolved into horrific violence, the killing of innocent Jewish civilians and the terrorizing of entire Israeli communities. These realities have disillusioned our people and betrayed the hope for dignity and justice.

But these internal failures, however serious, must never be used to justify military occupation, collective punishment or the denial of our basic rights. A people’s imperfections do not nullify their humanity. We must face our own brokenness — even as we cry out against the injustice done to us

In the Gospel of John, when Nathanael hears about Jesus of Nazareth, he asks, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip’s reply is timeless: “Come and see.”

To Charlie Kirk, Mike Huckabee and every Christian taught to fear my people and my city — come and see.

Come walk the streets of Bethlehem. Come visit the churches, clinics and classrooms. Come worship with Palestinian believers who still cling to Jesus in the very place he was born. Come meet the Muslim community of Bethlehem, who has hosted countless pastors, Christian leaders and mission teams and welcomed them to speak about Jesus.

Come meet the living stones — not just the ancient ones.

When Kirk says he doesn’t feel safe in Bethlehem, it isn’t a commentary on our city. It’s a reflection of a theology that prefers ideology over incarnation and fear over fellowship.

RELATED: In Bethlehem, a Christian pastor says a year of protest for Palestinians shows few gains

Bethlehem doesn’t need guards. It needs truth-tellers, bridge-builders and gospel witnesses who will refuse to demonize their fellow believers simply because they carry the name Palestinian.

The gospel didn’t begin with political power or military dominance. It began in a manger — in occupied Bethlehem.



Fares Abraham. (Courtesy photo)
(Fares Abraham is a Palestinian American evangelical minister and the president of Levant Ministries and now leads several ministries across the Middle East to strengthen gospel witness and promote peace. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of RNS.)

Diego Garcia Smells Like War

by Daniel McAdams Posted onApril 02, 2025

A significant amount of US military power has been on the move over this past week, including several B-2 strategic bombers which have landed at the US military base in Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean just over 2,000 miles southeast of Iran. According to press reports this is the most significant B-2 presence on the Island in nearly half a decade. In addition flight trackers are showing increased activity by at least nine KC-135R refueling aircraft in the region. Several C-17 cargo planes have also been spotted by satellites on the Island.

The US President has ordered US Carrier Strike Group Carl Vinson to the Mideast.

While the Administration continues to escalate its illegal bombing campaign against Yemen – some are reporting more than 60 strikes today alone and President Trump promises that they will continue “for a long time” – speculation is increasing that the Diego Garcia build-up is the beginning of the long process of positioning US military muscle for an attack on Iran.

President Trump today warned although his “big preference is we work it out with Iran…if we don’t work it out, bad bad things are gonna happen with Iran.”

So is the US president elected with the promise to end wars rather than start them ready to launch a war against the modern, technologically-advanced nation of 90 million with an extremely complicated terrain, advanced military capabilities, and a newly-signed strategic partnership treaty with Russia?

No one knows.

Congress seems uninterested in its Constitutional obligation to serve as the red light or green light for war – there has been nary a peep over Trump’s bombing of Yemen to, as his top aides were caught saying, “send a message.” Does anyone believe they will come out of their slumber as Hegseth, Waltz, Rubio, and the rest of the gang that couldn’t shoot straight (or at least plan a war on Signal straight) position the US for an attack on Iran?

Trump has continued – and perhaps even accelerated – in his second term a pattern of extreme rhetorical escalation followed by retrenchment possibly as a means of gaining the attention of the party he is addressing. For example he warned Russia earlier this month that he would increase sanctions and destroy its economy before backing down to a series of lengthy phone calls and lately capitulating to all of Russia’s demands.

So is this a big bluff to get Tehran back to negotiate the deal that Trump himself abrogated when he took office the first time? (And if so, why would Iran trust Washington this time)? Or will Trump (again) heed the call of Israel’s Netanyahu and expend US blood and treasure to take out Israel’s enemies?

Already Trump’s top picks, including his ambassador to Tel Aviv Mike Huckabee who is doing his best Colin Powell impression – claiming that as soon as Iran takes out Tel Aviv it will turn its sights to Tennessee – are urging action against “the head of the snake” as Bibi is wont to describe Iran. The pieces are falling into place and Trump’s entire cabinet is chock full of individuals for whom a war with Iran is the single most important item on the foreign policy agenda.

As analyst William Schryver points out, Iran is certainly not Yemen, Afghanistan, Saddam’s Iraq, Gaddafi’s Libya, or Noriega’s Panama. The United States under four years of mismanagement by whoever was acting as Biden’s brain has already thrown everything it had available in attempt to secure a strategic defeat for Russia and lost. The DC neocons move from failure to failure without skipping a beat, even as the US economy is bled dry by the war machine.

This war would be the end of Trump’s presidency and could well be the end of the US economy itself. All for an outrageous domino theory presented by (to a large degree) US religious extremists not unlike the religious extremists they claim to oppose abroad – that Tehran is seeking to “take over” the United States. It’s bonkers…yet for those of us who spend decades watching US foreign policy bonkers usually wins the day. Strap in…

Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

Daniel McAdams is Executive Director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity and co-Producer/co-Host, Ron Paul Liberty Report. Daniel served as the foreign affairs, civil liberties, and defense/intel policy advisor to U.S. Congressman Ron Paul, MD (R-Texas) from 2001 until Dr. Paul’s retirement at the end of 2012. From 1993-1999 he worked as a journalist based in Budapest, Hungary, and traveled through the former communist bloc as a human rights monitor and election observer.

Christian Zionism hasn’t always been a conservative evangelical creed

Participants in a ‘United for Israel’ march, led by The Pursuit NW Christian Church, stand on the University of Washington’s campus in May 2024. 

Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images

The Conversation

April 02, 2025

During confirmation hearings, Mike Huckabee, President Donald Trump’s nominee as ambassador to Israel, told senators that he would “respect and represent the President,” not his own views. But the Baptist minister’s views on the Middle East – and their religious roots – came through.

“The spiritual connections between your church, mine, many churches in America, Jewish congregations, to the state of Israel is because we ultimately are people of the book,” he said on March 25, 2025, in response to a question from a senator. “We believe the Bible, and therefore that connection is not geopolitical. It is also spiritual.”

Huckabee is one of the GOP’s most prominent “Christian Zionists” – a phrase often associated with conservative evangelicals’ support for Israel.

But Christian Zionism is much older than the 1980s alliance between the Republican Party and the religious right. American Christian attitudes toward the idea of a Jewish state have been evolving and changing dramatically since long before Israel’s creation.
Theologians for Israel

Zionism’s modern form emerged in the late 19th century. Its declared aim was to create a Jewish homeland in the region of Palestine, then under control of the Ottoman Empire. This was the land from which Jews were exiled in antiquity.

The “founding father” of the modern movement was Theodore Herzl, an Austro-Hungarian Jewish intellectual and activist who convened the first Zionist Congress in Switzerland in 1897. While most of the 200 attendees were Jews from various parts of the world, there were also prominent Protestant Christian leaders in attendance: church leaders and philanthropists who supported “the restoration of the Jews to their land.” Herzl dubbed these allies “Christian Zionists.”
Most delegates at the first Zionist Congress were Jewish, but the gathering also included Christians.

Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Catholic leaders, however, were not among the supporters of a Jewish state. The prospect of a Jewish state in the Christian Holy Land challenged the church’s view of Judaism as a religion whose people were condemned to permanent exile as punishment for rejecting Christ.

Eventually, in the wake of the Holocaust and the establishment of Israel, attitudes shifted. In 1965, reforms at the Vatican II council signaled a radical change for the better in Catholic-Jewish relations.

But it would be three decades until that change was reflected in the Vatican’s diplomatic recognition of the Jewish state.

In contrast, Protestants were more open to Jews’ aspiration to return. In 1917, the British foreign secretary published the Balfour Declaration, announcing government support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” With the British victory over the Ottoman Empire, the area soon fell under British control in the form of the League of Nations’ Mandate for Palestine.

In the U.S., the idea elicited enthusiasm among conservative Christians who hoped that the Jews’ return to Israel would help hasten the end times, when they believed Christ would return. Within a few years, Congress endorsed the Balfour Declaration.

Pastor W. Fuller Gooch summed up the evangelical reaction to the Balfour Declaration: “Palestine is for the Jews. The most striking ‘Sign of the Times’ is the proposal to give Palestine to the Jews once more. They have long desired the land, though as yet unrepentant of the terrible crime which led to their expulsion.” This “terrible crime” refers to Jews’ rejection of Jesus – one of multiple anti-Jewish tropes in the sermon.
Pivotal moment

Two decades later, prominent American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr declared himself a supporter of political Zionism. Unlike evangelicals, Niebuhr’s support for a Jewish state was based on pragmatic grounds: Considering the dangerous situation in 1930s Europe, he argued, Jews needed a state in order to be safe

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A 1963 photo of Reinhold Niebuhr, one of the most influential theologians from the U.S.

AP Photo

In the early 1940s, Niebuhr wrote a series of articles titled “Jews After the War” for The Nation magazine. His biographer Richard W. Fox called these articles “an eloquent statement of the Zionist case: The Jews had rights not just as individuals, but as a people, and they deserved not just a homeland, but a homeland in Palestine.”

Thus, in the 1930s and ‘40s, two different types of American Christian Zionism emerged. Some liberal Protestants, while giving qualified support to Zionism, expressed concern for the fate of the Palestinian Arabs. Conservative evangelicals, on the other hand, tended to be more hostile to Arab political aspirations.

In 1947, on the eve of the United Nations’ vote on the partition of Palestine, Niebuhr and six other prominent American intellectuals wrote a long letter to The New York Times, arguing that a Jewish state in the Middle East would serve American interests. “Politically, we would like to see the lands of the Middle East practice democracy as we do here,” they wrote. “Thus far there is only one vanguard of progress and modernization in the Middle East, and that is Jewish Palestine.”

In 1948, the U.S. government, at President Harry Truman’s direction, granted the newly declared state of Israel diplomatic recognition, over the objections of State Department officials.

There were, of course, prominent Americans who objected to recognizing Israel, or to embracing it so strongly. Among them was journalist Dorothy Thompson, who had turned against the Zionist cause after a Jewish militant group bombed Jerusalem’s King David Hotel in 1946. These opponents made the case for supporting emerging Arab nationalism and Palestinian autonomy and asserted that recognizing Israel would deepen America’s entanglement in the unfolding Middle Eastern conflicts.

But by the late 1950s and ‘60s, American criticism of Israel was increasingly muted. Liberal Christians, in particular, viewed it as a beleaguered democratic state and ally.
Rightward shift

Conservative Christian Zionists, meanwhile, continued to often view “love of Israel” through a biblical lens.

In the late '60s, the American journal Christianity Today published an article by editor Nelson Bell, father-in-law of famous evangelist Billy Graham. Jewish control of Jerusalem inspires “renewed faith in the accuracy and validity of the Bible,” Bell wrote.

Rev. Jerry Falwell, on the right, listens as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gives a speech to a conservative Christian group in Washington in 1998.William Philpott/AFP via Getty Images

Fifteen years later, televangelist Jerry Falwell told an interviewer that Jewish people have both a theological and historical “right to the land.” He added, “I am personally a Zionist, having gained that perspective from my belief in Old Testament scriptures.”

These Christians, like some Jewish religious Zionists, saw “the hand of God” in Israel’s conquest of East Jerusalem during the Six-Day War of 1967. They considered any territorial compromise with Arab states and the Palestinians to be an act against God.

During the 1980s, as the Republican Party forged alliances with the emerging religious right, Israel would become a core cause for the GOP. Some liberal Jews who supported Israel grew alarmed by these ties and by the rightward shift in Israeli policies toward the Palestinians.

Yet this brand of Christian Zionism is clearly the forerunner to today’s – and holds sway in Washington. Today, 83% of Republicans view Israel favorably, compared with 33% of Democrats. Republicans in Congress are pushing to use the biblical terms “Judea and Samaria” instead of “the West Bank.” Evangelical Christian Zionists continue to call for support of the Israeli right and of settlers in the occupied territories.

And in Huckabee, they see a potential ambassador who shares their views.

In 2009, when Huckabee was considering a presidential campaign, he visited Israel and met with settler leaders. On hearing of Huckabee’s presidential aspirations, a rabbi said, “We hope that under Mike Huckabee’s presidency, he will be like Cyrus and push us to rebuild the Temple and bring the final redemption.” The rabbi was referring to the biblical story of Cyrus, King of Persia, and his proclamation that the exiled Jews be allowed to return to Zion.

Seven decades after the state of Israel’s founding, evangelical Christian Zionism’s influence is greater than ever. This turn to the political right is very far from the mid-20th century Zionism of Truman, Niebuhr and the Democratic Party.

Shalom Goldman, Professor of Religion, Middlebury

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

KHALIL DOSSIER

'Felt like a kidnapping': 'Terrifying' video released of Palestinian activist's arrest

Daniel Hampton
March 14, 2025 
RAW STORY


Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student who played a prominent role in pro-Palestinian protests at the university, is detained by U.S. federal immigration agents in New York, U.S., March 8, 2025, in this still image obtained from a video. The Family of Mahmoud Khalil/Handout via REUTERS THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. IMAGE MASKED AT SOURCE

Video has been released of the moment a Palestinian activist was taken into custody by federal authorities over his role in anti-Israel protests that rocked Columbia University last year.

In the video, released Friday, three immigration agents confront Mahmoud Khalil in the lobby of his apartment building near the university campus Saturday night. The agents can be heard telling him he is “going to be under arrest" and repeatedly instruct him to “turn around” and “stop resisting.”

“There’s no need for this,” Khalil responds as he's placed in handcuffs. “I’m going with you. No worries.”

Khalil's wife, Noor Abdalla, who is eight months pregnant, can be heard asking in Arabic: “My love, how can I call you?”

Khalil says he'll be fine and tells Abdalla to call his attorney. She later demands to know the names of the agents and the arresting agency upon advice of her attorney, but one agent replies: “We don’t give our names."

Lawyers for the Justice Department have said in court documents that Kahlil was detained under a law allowing Secretary of State Marco Rubio to remove someone from the country if he has reason to believe they could have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.

In a statement accompanying the video, Abdalla called it "the most terrifying moment of my life."

"This felt like a kidnapping because it was: Officers in plainclothes — who refused to show us a warrant, speak with our attorney, or even tell us their names — forced my husband into an unmarked car and took him away from me," she said. "They threatened to take me too, even though we were calm and fully cooperating."


Abdalla said neither she nor her lawyer knew where Khalil was being detained for nearly two days after the arrest.

"Now, he's over 1,000 miles from home, still being wrongfully detained by US immigration."

Trump has vowed to deport Khalil, accusing him of supporting Hamas, which has been designated a terrorist organization. The president said Khalil's arrest was just "the first arrest of many to come."

"We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "If you support terrorism, including the slaughtering of innocent men, women, and children, your presence is contrary to our national and foreign policy interests, and you are not welcome here. We expect every one of America's Colleges and Universities to comply."

American Civil Liberties Union, however, hit back at Trump in a post on x Friday evening.

"President Trump can't punish and deport someone for their political beliefs. Mahmoud Khalil has not been charged with a crime — he must be released immediately," the organization said.

Watch the arrest below or at this link.

Jewish protesters occupy Trump Tower over arrest of Palestinian activist

NEW YORK (RNS) — The sit-in was organized by Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Zionist Jewish organization, and took place under the golden escalator where Donald Trump launched his first presidential campaign in 2015.

Demonstrators organized by Jewish Voice for Peace protest inside Trump Tower in support of Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, March 13, 2025, in New York. (RNS photo/Fiona André)

Fiona André

March 13, 2025

Link copied!0

NEW YORK (RNS) — Around 150 activists occupied the Trump Tower lobby Thursday (March 13) to demand the release of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist arrested Saturday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement over his involvement in pro-Palestinian student protests at Columbia University.

Around noon, protesters in the hotel atrium unraveled banners reading “Fight Nazis not students,” “Jews say Free Mahmoud & Free Palestine” and “Jews say do not comply.” For an hour, they called for Khalil’s release and for a ceasefire in Gaza. Around 1 p.m., dozens of New York Police Department Strategic Response Group officers filled the building’s lobby and arrested 98 protesters, who were then led in a procession on Madison Avenue to get into NYPD buses.

The sit-in, held beneath the golden escalator where Donald Trump launched his presidential campaign in 2015, was organized by Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Zionist Jewish organization. The protest was the latest in a series of rallies denouncing Khalil’s arrest as a grave violation of freedom of speech by the Trump administration.

A 2024 Columbia University graduate, Khalil was arrested Saturday evening in his university-owned apartment and taken to a processing center in Louisiana. Khalil, 30, had his green card revoked and faces possible deportation. Monday evening, U.S. District Judge Jesse M. Furman temporarily blocked efforts to deport Khalil, whose wife, an American citizen, is eight months pregnant.

Demonstrators organized by Jewish Voice for Peace protest inside Trump Tower in support of Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, March 13, 2025, in New York. (RNS photo/Fiona André)

Last spring, Khalil was at the forefront of the pro-Palestinian student movement. He led negotiations between the school’s administration and Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the student coalition that convened the pro-Palestinian encampment last spring.

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RELATED: For Muslim student protesters, a sense of purpose mingled with fear

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Among the crowd standing in the hotel lobby was actress Debra Winger, who said she felt responsible to denounce the administration’s weaponization of antisemitism.

“I’m a Jew, and I don’t like antisemitism being used as a cover for a regime, a fascist regime. I will not have them do this in my name. I cannot sit down,” she said, wearing a red T-shirt with the words “Not in my name.”

The protesters occupied the Trump Tower’s lobby for an hour, chanting: “We want justice! You say: How? Bring Mahmoud home now!” and “Come for one, face us all,” and “No more money for Israel’s crimes.” When the protesters first entered the lobby, many uncovered red T-shirts reading “Jews say stop arming Israel.”

Award-winning screenwriter James Schamus, a Jewish faculty member at Columbia University, said it was important as a member of the Jewish community to express solidarity with Khalil.

“I’m so proud of my fellow New York Jews and their allies for showing up, standing up, demanding the freedom for Mahmoud Khalil and also the protection for all of us,” said Schamus.

New York Police officers arrest a demonstrator from inside Trump Tower, March 13, 2025, in New York. (RNS photo/Fiona André)

The administration’s targeting of the Columbia community has sown terror on campus, Schamus said. Days before Khalil’s arrest, the Trump administration cut $400 million in federal funding to the university over what the administration said was a failure to tackle antisemitism.

During the protests, many slogans referred to Elon Musk, an adviser for the Trump administration and the head of the Department of Government Efficiency, denouncing a recent salute he made after a speech, which many viewed as a Nazi gesture.

Tal Frieden, a 27-year-old JVP member, said Musk’s presence in Trump’s circles exposed the administration’s insincere commitment to fight antisemitism.

“The Trump regime is using antisemitism as a guise to pursue its fascist agenda. If Trump cared anything about antisemitism, he wouldn’t put white nationalists like Elon Musk in the White House,” he said.

Khalil’s arrest, Frieden said, was the latest instance of the Trump administration targeting pro-Palestinian student protesters and an attempt to sow fear within the movement. “If they come for students today, it could be any of us tomorrow. So we’re here fighting to free Mahmoud Khalil and to defend our right to protest and freedom of speech,” said Frieden.

Frieden, whose grandparents were Holocaust survivors while others of his relatives died in Poland’s Warsaw Ghetto, said his involvement with JVP and efforts to denounce the situation in Gaza is a way to give justice to his family’s story.

Also among the protesters were New York City Council member Alexa Aviles, writer Molly Crabapple, actor Arliss Howard, actor Indya Moore, director Laura Poitras and actor Morgan Spector.

Today We Are All Mahmoud Khalil

If Mahmoud Khalil is not free to protest neither are we.

By Stephen J. Lyons

March 13, 2025

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.



Pop open those bottles of chilled champagne. The United States of America is now in the same exclusive company as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Italy, Pakistan, and Serbia. Our flagging democracy has landed on the CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist along with those four nations.

https://monitor.civicus.org/watchlist-march-2025

According to its mission statement, “CIVICUS has worked for nearly two decades to strengthen citizen action and civil society throughout the world, especially in areas where participatory democracy and citizens’ freedom of association are threatened.”

“The Watchlist draws attention to countries where there is a serious decline in respect for civic space, based on an assessment by CIVICUS Monitor research findings, our research partners and consultations with activists on the ground.”

For the United States, CIVICUS cites “undue restrictions on civic freedoms under President Donald Trump’s second term. Gross abuses of executive power raise serious concerns over the freedoms of peaceful assembly, expression and association…Due to the Trump administration’s assault on democratic norms and global cooperation, CIVICUS has added the United States of America (USA) to its Watchlist of countries with faltering civic freedoms.”

Unlike Congressional Republicans that are goose-stepping in line with a president who cares nothing for Constitutional laws and norms, or the oath of office he took, the researchers at this South African-based research group can see the horror that is unfolding here in the U.S.

Some specifics that CIVICUS named in its March 10th news release.

· Arbitrary executive orders leading to mass firings of public servants.

· Takeover over of key positions in the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation by Trump loyalists. “They are likely to severely impact constitutional freedoms of peaceful assembly, expression, and association.”

· Indiscriminate retreats from cooperative international organizations such as the World Health Organization and the UN Human Rights Council.

· Attacks on programs of diversity, equality, and inclusions, halting the progress that DEI has made.

· Intimidation on journalists including banning the Associated Press from the White House and from talking to government officials.

· Halting funding “ for civil society organizations that support sexual and reproductive freedoms due to its negative stance on abortion rights.”

· “Continued repression against pro-Palestinian protesters with arbitrary penalties and student visa cancellations.”

To summarize, “This is an unparalleled attack on the rule of law in the United States, not seen since the days of McCarthyism in the twentieth century. Restrictive executive orders, unjustifiable institutional cutbacks, and intimidation tactics through threatening pronouncements by senior officials in the administration are creating an atmosphere to chill democratic dissent, a cherished American ideal.

“The Trump administration seems hellbent on dismantling the system of checks and balances which are the pillars of a democratic society,” said Mandeep Tiwana, Interim Co-Secretary General of CIVICUS.

https://monitor.civicus.org/watchlist-march-2025/USA

I want to circle back to the last bullet point, the crackdown on pro-Palestinian protestors, because we are seeing the arrest and muzzling of those who oppose the viewpoints of this new administration happening in real time. Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil was grabbed by Immigration Enforcement and Customs agents and taken from his home (and from his wife, who is eight months pregnant) and whisked off to some deportation location in Louisiana. He has not been charged with a crime. He is a legal resident of the U.S., but now his green card has been revoked thanks to an order by the always spineless windsock, Secretary of State Little Marco Rubio.

President Trump, who cheered the arrest of Khalil, promises more arrests and crackdowns on what he labels as “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity.”

There is no evidence that Khalil, the leader of pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia, fits into any of those three categories. The Department of Homeland Security is accusing Khalid of being “aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.”

The Anti-Defamation League, never one to miss an opportunity to acknowledge a slight—real or imagined—praised the detention as a “bold set of efforts to counter campus anti-semitism” by “holding alleged perpetrators responsible for their actions.”

In ADL’s viewpoint and in Trump, anyone who supports Palestinians and protests the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent victims and the scorched-earth devastation of Gaza has to be “anti-semitic.”

(I wrote about this issue last year for the Chicago Tribune. The column, titled “Why Can’t I Criticize the War in Gaza without Being Called Antisemitic?” was syndicated far and wide in newspapers across the United States. In the column I of course condemned Hamas, because you can be compassionate and clear-eyed at the same time. From the column: “Am I allowed to point out that so often the historically oppressed becomes the oppressor du jour?

“Who will be the next university president forced to resign or be fired because of a pro-Palestinian campus protest or because of a linguistic trap set by anti-intellectual members of Congress who demand fealty of all students and faculty in support of Israel’s aggressive bombing of Gaza? Are universities becoming islands of repression in a sea of democracy?”

I also wrote a piece in January of 2024 for the Defense Post that criticized Israel for using U.S.-manufactured white phosphorus shells on a Lebanese village and earlier on Palestinian civilians in Gaza. https://thedefensepost.com/2024/01/02/israel-white-phosphorus/)

Hmm, where have we heard the term “anti-American activity.” McCarthyism of the 1950s is defined by the American Heritage Dictionary as, “1. The political practice of publicizing accusations of disloyalty or subversion with insufficient regard to evidence; and 2. The use of methods of investigation and accusation regarded as unfair, in order to suppress opposition.”

Protests on campuses, in front of the White House or at Tesla dealerships are protected by a document that Trump has probably never read, the Constitution of the United States of America. The founders of our nation made sure that the freedoms that Trump and his henchmen would like to do away with were in the very first amendment. “Congress shall make no law…prohibiting the right of the people peacefully to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

While Khalid awaits a hearing regarding his status, while languishing in deportment purgatory, I can only imagine that many of his fellow protestors and those around the country are fearing that knock at the door.

From the New York Times: “Because Mahmoud has been so prominent, active and outspoken in support of Palestinian rights, he’s been marked as a target,” said one of his lawyers, Ramzi Kassem, a co-director of CLEAR, a legal clinic at the City University of New York. “What’s being done to him is unconstitutional, it is unlawful, and we intend to do everything in our power to ensure the Trump administration will not get away with it in court.”

Yet, the damage has already occurred. No matter what happens in court the Trump administration has erected another block in its authoritarian wall by instilling fear into anyone who dares to practice their First Amendment rights, either in print or in person.

If you don’t believe me, listen to Khalid’s wife: “I was born and raised in the Midwest. My parents came here from Syria, carrying their stories of the oppressive regime there that made life unlivable. They believed living in the US would bring a sense of safety and stability. But here I am, 40 years after my parents immigrated here, and just weeks before I’m due to give birth to our first child, and I feel more unsafe and unstable than I have in my entire life.”

She is not alone.


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Stephen J. Lyons  is the author of six books of reportage and essays, including Going Driftless, Life Lessons from the Heartland for Unraveling Times. His essays and commentaries have appeared in The Sun, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Reader, Newsweek, High Country News, the Independent, South China Morning Post, the New York Daily News, the Washington Post, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Reason, Psychotherapy Networker, Salon, Audubon, USA Today, and many other magazines and newspapers.

New Yorkers Protest Trump’s Arrest of Palestinian Student Activist

By Saurav Sarkar

March 13, 2025

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.

SWinxy, CC BY 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

As chants of ‘No ICE, No KKK, No Fascist USA!’ echoed through downtown Manhattan on 10 March 2025, I spoke to a person named Richard who had been marching just ahead of me. He declined to give his last name but was eager to speak his piece.

‘We need to be out in the streets and say “This will not fly. This will not happen on our watch”’, he said.

The state kidnapping and imminent deportation of recently graduated Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil had brought both Richard and me out into those streets.

Khalil was detained by the U.S. government on Saturday, 8 March, at his university-owned residence after returning from an Iftar dinner with his wife, who is a US citizen and eight months pregnant. According to information from the US Immigration & Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), Khalil was being held in a detention centre in Jena, Louisiana, as of 11 March 2025.

The Palestinian student, born in 1995, was a visible participant throughout 2024 in the Columbia students’ protests against the ongoing genocide in Gaza. As a result, he has now been accused of ‘pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity’ by the president of the United States on the social media platform the latter owns.

A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s indecency until at least 12 March 2025 but Khalil’s future in the United States beyond that is uncertain.

‘We need to remember what Mahmoud was harassed by Zionists and then arrested by [the Department of Homeland Security] for. It was for protesting Israel’s genocide of his own people, of the Palestinian people,’ Miriam Osman, an organiser with Palestinian Youth Movement, told Al Jazeera. The Department of Homeland Security is the cabinet-level body in the US that houses ICE.

Khalil’s arrest comes amidst an alarming rise in anti-Muslim hate crimes in the United States that many link to the US president’s words and actions and land sales in the West Bank by Zionist organizations targeting US citizens.

The Trump administration is attempting to deport Khalil, who graduated from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs in December 2024. This is despite the fact that Khalil holds permanent residence in the United States.

According to anonymous government sources cited by the New York Times, he is accused of “presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences,” an obscure provision in the primary US immigration law that practitioners have not seen used to justify a deportation in living memory.

An hour previous to the march, framed by the austere government buildings that surround downtown New York City’s Federal Plaza, about 1,000 people had gathered for a demonstration.

The numbers in Federal Plaza were not themselves massive by the standards of the past two years of Palestine protests in New York City. But those assembled represented a much larger group of people; over 2 million have signed a petition as of 11 March 2025 to ‘demand the immediate release of Palestinian student activist Mahmoud Khalil from [immigration] detention and a reversal to Columbia University’s protocol permitting [immigration enforcement agents] on campus without a warrant.’

Moreover, the protest brought out a wider swathe of community and movement organisations than many pro-Palestine protests in the New York City area, ranging from anti-Zionist organisations like Palestinian Youth Movement and Jewish Voice for Peace to political groups like ANSWER Coalition and Democratic Socialists of America to local immigrant rights bodies. These groups have been active in the protests that began since October 2023 against the genocide in Gaza. Mahmoud Khalil was part of those protests.

‘The Trump regime… is endangering Jewish people and using the guise of fighting antisemitism to dismantle our Constitutionally protected rights to free speech and dissent’, said Jewish Voice for Peace in a statement on its website.

Numerous speakers at the rally emphasised the need to organise against Zionism and against Trump in daily life. One protester was already living that; she declined to be formally interviewed but said that she had been on her way home from a doctor’s appointment when she learned of the demonstration and felt compelled to attend.



This article was produced by Globetrotter.

Mahmoud Khalil’s Illegal Kidnapping is the Tip of a Fascist Spear

By Carl Davidson

March 13, 2025

Source: Liberation Road


Image: “Release Mahmoud Khalil” protests, NYC


A Palestinian human rights advocate, Mahmoud Khalil, has been kidnapped from his Columbia University residence and illegally detained by ICE/DHS agents, first in New Jersey, and now in a private prison in Louisiana.

Khalil is a legal resident of the U.S. with a Green Card. His wife is an American citizen, and eight months pregnant. He has broken no U.S. laws, or at least none his ICE captors will name, and he is entitled to all the protections of the U.S. Constitution. He is a self-described human rights advocate, and what he has done is participate in campus protests against the ongoing Israeli genocide against Gazans and residents of the West Bank, where his family is from. During these protests, he was the designated negotiator between the students protesting and the Columbia administrators, working to avoid any undue conflicts.

Why call this a kidnapping? First, the four plainclothes DHS agents entered Khalil’s housing space illegally. He gave them no permission. The agents claimed they had a “warrant.” This was a lie, they had no legal warrant at all. They claimed they had a warrant to revoke his student visa. Khalil informed them he wasn’t on a student visa. He had a green card. After a quick phone conversation, the agents claimed they now had authority to revoke his green card. Another lie. They did not. They simply seized Khalid, rejected any queries from his lawyers, and quickly flew him to Louisiana. Why? To separate him from family and effective legal advice, the opposite of habeas corpus.

What did the agents have? Simply a directive from Trump and Mario Rubio, via DHS, to arrest and deport him for being pro-Hamas and anti-Semitic, and thus disruptive of U.S. foreign policy. None of this is true, and even if it were, it is still protected speech under the First Amendment. How was he likely targeted? An Israeli professor at Columbia who disliked Khalil intensely contacted Mario Rubio and asked him to do something. Rubio then discussed the matter with Trump, fishing for a rationale to justify Khalil’s persecution.

Rubio found an obscure State Department regulation allowing him to deport legal residents, even with green cards and breaking no laws, if he thought their ongoing presence would have “serious adverse foreign policy consequences.” (The architect of that 1952 regulation, Nevada Senator Patrick McCarran, portrayed Jews as Soviet agents and “subversive rats that need to be kept out.”) The regulation is obscure and odious, and it is not at all clear it could be applied to Khalil as an individual. Moreover, Rubio would first have to have an immigration court take away Khalil’s green card protections, which is not within the State Department’s reach.

Rubio’s foreign policy reasoning? “There are kids at these schools that can’t go to class. You pay all this money to these high-priced schools that are supposed to be of great esteem, and you can’t even go to class. You’re afraid to go to class because these lunatics are running around with covers on their face, screaming terrifying things.” (Lunatics like the pardoned January 6th criminals?)

We need to see that the Trump attack on Khalil is the tip of the spear. The first stab is ideological. All protests against Israel’s actions regarding Palestinians are, ipso facto, by that very fact, anti-Semitic and pro-Hamas. Never mind the fact that large numbers of Jewish students, through their peace and justice groups, and hundreds of Rabbis, have joined many of these same protests. Trump even sends Mike Huckabee as the new ambassador to Israel, who asserts “there is no such thing as a Palestinian,” a view shared by Pete Hegseth, his new Defense Secretary.

The second stab is political. Trump wants to isolate and divide any emerging peace movement critical of him. He proclaims that “this is just the beginning” and we can expect hundreds of more arrests, since being pro-Palestinian also means you are “pro-terrorist” and can be arrested or deported under any of the several post 9/11 draconian laws regarding terrorism. At the top of the list are some six million Palestinian-Americans, then perhaps a hundred million U.S. citizens who think Palestinians in Israel have rights to be respected by all. Most of these are Democratic voters, and they are thus warned to shut up and stay out of politics.

The third stab is institutional. Trump is taking aim at nearly all universities and colleges, which he believes are controlled “by the radical left.” Unless they are purged of all critical thought, he will cut off millions in government support. He already took $400 million from Columbia. More than anyone, we on the left know this is ridiculous. Despite a few reforms won in the 1960s regarding Black, Women’s, and various other studies departments, it is quite clear to us that higher education remains firmly in the hands of the capitalist class and serves its interests. That was one reason motivating the students at Columbia in the first place, the university’s support for the war machine, especially in the Middle East.

Many of us have seen this movie before. In the early days of the 1960s civil rights protests in the South, students were labelled “outside agitators” and “paid agents of the Kremlin and the communists.” Early protestors against the Vietnam War were called “traitors” and “unpatriotic,” with some ROTC hecklers throwing red paint on them. Universities threatened to take away any federal loans. With J. Edgar Hoover’s COINTELPRO assault, things turned worse. We saw the assassination of Fred Hampton and the murders of many other Black Panther Party members. Hoover started the program in 1956 against the CPUSA, but widened its scope against Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, many others in Black-led movements, and the entire New Left. (This writer was on COINTELPRO’s short list of “those to be neutralized.”)

We stood up to these attacks fearlessly from the start. As far as we were concerned, “McCarthyism” was dead and over. If called before hearings or the courts, we would disrupt or otherwise protest them with guerilla theater. The House Un-American Activities Committee died the day Jerry Rubin showed up to testify wearing a Santa Claus suit, claiming he wanted all the kids watching TV to see HUAC attacking Santa Claus. Eventually, especially after returning GIs joined a massive antiwar mobilization in D.C. and threw their medals back at Congress, the tide turned. A militant minority had become a progressive majority.

That points to the task before us: we have to turn today’s militant minority in solidarity with Gaza and the West Bank into a progressive majority demanding a ceasefire and cutoff of funds to Israel. In some ways, the stakes are higher and more difficult. Antisemitism, in many ways, is a more difficult label for many to see through than “communism,” especially with a population divided into separate media silos.

We know all the instruments to play. Circulate and sign petitions, get a letter in your local paper (worth tens of thousands of leaflets), get your local Dems, unions, and independent political organizations to demand freedom for Khalil, put the heat on your local members of Congress, turn out for all the street protests, and so on.

We know the drill, and we have to engage this fight today in a big way. What’s happened to Khalil is a huge injustice, and we need to reverse it. But this reaches far beyond Khalil, even beyond the movement around Gaza. It reaches to Trump’s overall efforts to reverse all progressive gains and return the United States to the era of his new high-tariff seizor-of-foreign-lands hero, President William McKinley. To the degree that we can’t stop it here, it will only get worse. We have no desire to see a new era of bloodletting that we saw in the 1960s and 1970s. Nor can we go back to an old “normal.” We have to move forward, shifting the terrain to defeat MAGA fascism and win governing power for the wide alliance of a Third Reconstruction. For that position, we will face even newer prospects, but we have to get there first.

Trump’s Abuses & Mahmoud Khalil’s Arrest Are Products of U.S. 

By Noura Erakat, Amy Goodman , Juan Gonzalez 

March 12, 2025

Source: Democracy Now!


Palestinian human rights attorney Noura Erakat responds to the arrest of Columbia University student protest leader Mahmoud Khalil and situates it in the long, bipartisan history of anti-Palestine suppression of free speech. “It was the Biden administration, it was the Democratic establishment, that has created the conditions that we are now seeing taken advantage of,” she says of Khalil’s targeting by the Trump administration for deportation. Erakat calls for continued resistance and study of U.S. imperialism and Zionism in the face of racist repression. “This is the precise moment we should be studying Palestine in order to understand ourselves and what’s coming and our responsibility in the world as an imperial power.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: For more on the criminalization of dissent and repression of pro-Palestinian activism, we’re joined now from Philadelphia by Palestinian human rights lawyer, Rutgers University professor Noura Erakat. She is the author of Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine. Her most recent article for the Boston Review is called “The Boomerang Comes Back: How the U.S.-backed war on Palestine is expanding authoritarianism at home.”

If you can respond, Professor Erakat, to these latest developments with Mahmoud and talk about what you mean by the boomerang effect?

NOURA ERAKAT: Thank you, Amy.

By the boomerang effect, I am invoking Aimé Césaire, Martiniquan essayist, author, poet, who in 1950 wrote a searing polemic on the discourse on colonialism, where he pointed a finger at European and Western leaders who were condemning Hitler for the execution of genocide within Europe’s shores, and telling them very blatantly that they are not different from Hitler, but have little Hitlers inside of them that they have failed to condemn because their violence has been meted out against Brown and Black and Indigenous peoples in their colonial periphery. And in that critique, he was emphasizing that the Holocaust that — the Jewish Holocaust that happens at the hands of the Nazis was rehearsed on other Indigenous, Black, Brown, colonized peoples and emphasizing that there is no violence in a colonial periphery that does not boomerang back home into the domestic sphere. And my emphasis here by invoking that was to show that there is no way to defeat fascism at home without combating empire abroad. In order to defeat U.S. state violence at home, it has to be confronted on both fronts of its domestic and its foreign image.

In this instance, we have seen that boomerang come home especially quickly as the United States, under the Biden administration, continued, fomented, supplied, made possible a genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza for 16 months straight; in order to do that, repressed speech at home, fomented the attack on students, expanded presidential authority, refused to apply U.S. law, denigrated international law, and basically created, spread a red carpet for the Trump administration to come now and expand that repression to all other vulnerable communities. And I want to emphasize that this was possible because of the thorough dehumanization of Palestinians, because of the desensitization to their suffering, because of the racialization as violent and dangerous. There was not a blink amongst the Democratic establishment that children were being slaughtered and asking for Americans not to slaughter them. Somehow, “do not kill children” became an exception when it came to Palestinians.

There was actually supporting the repression of universities of their students because they were described as violent and dangerous, rather than celebrated as antiwar protesters in the tradition of university protest in this country. I have quotes from the Biden administration — from Biden himself, excuse me, where he says, “Let me be clear: Violent protests will not be tolerated, but peaceful protest is,” suggesting that the student protests were violent, when 98% of them were nonviolent, and the violent ones were violent specifically because of mob violence and because of police violence, because of drones, because of law enforcement that was sent out to the universities. It was Biden who said, “This blatant antisemitism is reprehensible and dangerous. It has absolutely no place on college campuses or anywhere in our country.”

It was the Biden administration, it was the Democratic establishment, that has created the conditions that we are now seeing taken advantage of. The Trump administration before has tried to gut women and gender studies, DEI, critical race theory, but could not do it, but in this moment has been able to do it because all of the guards have been let down as the supposed liberal establishment allowed for these repressive regimes to be mobilized against Palestinians once again, understanding us as the lowest hanging fruit to sacrifice rather than as the canary in the coal mine that has been telling you danger is here. Those Palestinians and their allies here on university campuses, heroically at points, struggled to save some sort of core humanitarian principles in the United States, and instead were expelled , were suspended, were doxxed, were denied graduation. And now there can be no surprise that the Trump administration is mobilizing with ease as they continue to use Palestinians as their Trojan horse in order to gut the welfare state, in order to defund universities, in order to go after minority communities.

And so, this message is not to point fingers, but this message is to mobilize us and to stand in line that in order to defeat this fascist rollout, Palestinians have to be centered. Palestinian humanity has to be recognized. Palestine has to be central to an agenda, not because it is exceptional, but specifically because it is not exceptional and it is central to this agenda that is being rolled out, and it can stand at the gate against further repression.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Noura Erakat, I wanted to ask you — the warnings to more than 60 universities now that they’re under investigation, even though most of those universities did exactly what they were told last year in terms of repressing the pro-Palestinian protests. The issue of how many of these universities over the last decades have increasingly relied on federal funds, on donor, private donor, money to keep themselves afloat. Now they are having to buckle even further under, even though they did what they were told.

NOURA ERAKAT: Look, the universities have been suffering from a crisis and a neoliberal crisis in their funding and in their structure for a long time, as public funding for them and subsidy has been declining and they become increasingly reliant on private capital, including from weapons manufacturers, who are more subsidized by the federal government than, in fact, the DOE is subsidized by them. They have become beholden to this holding pattern.

But what we get in this lesson is that this kind of anticipatory obedience to do what the administration does will not make you safe, not at the university level and not at the individual level. The only way to protect yourself is to protest in this moment. Your silence will be a target, not a shield. There is no way to put your head down and to survive this moment.

And again, I want to emphasize that paying attention to Palestinians will allow you to understand what is coming. They have long been the canary in the coal mine, the Trojan horse for conservative agendas. They have been the experiment, the guinea pig for state repression. Steven Salaita was the first professor whose tenure was not denied, but revoked. Rasmea Odeh had her citizenship revoked — not her green card, her citizenship revoked. The Holy Land Foundation were subject to trials where they had secret evidence marshaled against them, a blatant violation of the Sixth Amendment. All of them, Palestinians. The Los Angeles Eight, Amy, you reported on this. I love your reporting on this. And people seem to forget, from 1987 to 2007, a 20-year witch hunt against seven Palestinians and one Kenyan for pamphleting, for passing out pamphlets for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the PFLP, first prosecuted under the McCarran-Walter Act, and when that was deemed unconstitutional for its anti-communist provisions, then prosecuted under material support until it, too, was dropped.

People need to understand that what happens to Palestinians is not because we are a national security threat, but because we have been so thoroughly dehumanized, you cannot recognize our suffering, and think that it’s somehow justified. And that is a Zionist narrative that has fomented anti-Palestinian racism. And organizations that deem themselves to be civil rights organizations, like the ADL, rather than condemn the trampling — if they were civil rights organizations — rather than condemn the trampling of civil rights violations in this moment, came out and expressed appreciation for the Trump administration’s arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, as have several other Zionist organizations.

And so, this is the moment to develop a critical analysis of Zionism and understand where you stand on it. It is certainly a responsibility of Americans to study this, because it is part of our politics. At Hunter College, the search for Palestine studies professors was canceled. This is the precise moment we should be studying Palestine, in order to understand ourselves and what’s coming and our responsibility in the world as an imperial power. And instead, it is being shut down under these precepts because of our failure to grapple with Zionism, our failure to grapple with American empire, our failure to understand Palestine, and, frankly, our failure to listen to Palestinians.

AMY GOODMAN: Noura Erakat, we want to thank you so much for being with us, Palestinian American human rights attorney, professor at Rutgers University, author of Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine. Her most recent article for the Boston Review is “The Boomerang Comes Back.”

Arrest of Palestinian Columbia activist divides American Jews

(RNS) — Growing divisions split the American Jewish community between those defending Israel and concerned with Jewish safety, and those speaking out against Israel and in support of free speech.

Protesters gather for a demonstration in support of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, Monday, March 10, 2025, outside the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in New York. 

(AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

Yonat Shimron and Fiona André
March 11, 2025



(RNS) — The arrest of a former Columbia University graduate student who had a leading role on campus criticizing Israel’s war in Gaza has sparked sharp divisions within the American Jewish community.

Mahmoud Khalil, an activist in last year’s pro-Palestinian campus protests that led to tent encampments, was arrested by U.S. immigration agents on Saturday (March 8) as part of the Trump administration’s pledge to deport anti-Israel student activists. Khalil, who is of Palestinian descent but grew up in Syria, is a permanent resident of the United States.

His arrest was hailed by some sectors of the American Jewish community, including the Anti-Defamation League, an organization that fights antisemitism. The ADL released a statement applauding the “swift and severe consequences for those who provide material support to foreign terrorist organizations.” Khalil has not been charged with material or any other support to a


Likewise, American Jewish Committee, a global Jewish advocacy organization, said in a March 11 statement it is “appalled by the views and actions” of Khalil and, “should the government prove its case in a prompt and public legal proceeding, and Khalil is afforded due process, then deportation will be fully justified.”

Other Jews were outraged by the arrest, which they viewed as a blatant violation of civil liberties including free speech and the right to protest.

“The Trump administration is exploiting real concerns about antisemitism to undercut democracy,” wrote Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the nonpartisan Jewish Council for Public Affairs, on social media site X. “As we’ve repeatedly said: this makes Jews — and so many others — less safe.”

Khalil’s arrest came a day after the Trump administration pulled $400 million in federal funding from the university, claiming it hadn’t addressed antisemitism that increased on campus since Oct. 7, 2023.
RELATED: Survey: Antisemitism at US campuses limited to select schools

The reaction to the arrest of the Palestinian activist shows a growing schism in the American Jewish community between those defending Israel and concerned with Jewish safety and those committed to longstanding liberal values that include speaking out against Israel.

IfNotNow, a Jewish organization critical of Israel, alongside the New York-based Jews for Racial & Economic Justice, mounted a demonstration with faculty from Columbia and Barnard College near the Columbia campus in Upper Manhattan on Monday. Another demonstration at Foley Square in Lower Manhattan drew hundreds of people waving Palestinian flags. They denounced violations to Khalil’s First Amendment rights and the broader implications for free speech.

Khalil is being held at a detention facility in Jena, Louisiana, awaiting immigration court proceedings. On Monday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to deport him. It is not clear on what grounds the government can deport a permanent resident without a criminal conviction.

Israel’s overwhelming retaliation for the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack, in which it has killed close to 50,000 Palestinians, has led many American Jews to charge that Jews are victims of antisemitism.

At many colleges, Jewish students argued the takeovers of buildings during the protests prevented them from going to class. They also said materials handed out at encampments, some featuring denunciations of Zionism, the ideology undergirding the creation of Israel, and its occupation of Palestinian territory made them feel unsafe on campus.

But other Jews, including many Jewish students that participated in the pro-Palestinian campus protests, said criticism of Israel is not inherently antisemitic. Nor should it be labeled as “pro-terrorist,” or “pro-Hamas,” as the Trump administration and other staunch Israel supporters have tried to do.


Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg speaks at a demonstration in support of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, Monday, March 10, 2025, near Columbia University in New York City. (RNS photo/Fiona André)

“It should be obvious to everyone that what is happening on this campus, or to this campus, is not about protecting Jews,” said professor Marianne Hirsch of Columbia Jewish Faculty Group. “My committed Jewish faculty colleagues and I have warned that the false characterization of (Columbia University) as a hotbed of antisemitism would be used as an alibi for what’s actually at stke for the Republican establishment and now the Trump administration — strict control of speech, of protest and of higher education 
Hillel, the Jewish student organization on college campuses, which tracks reports of antisemitism on campus and works to safeguard Jewish students, did not respond to requests for comment.

The Union for Reform Judaism, the nation’s largest Jewish denomination in the United States, likewise declined to comment.

Rabbi Jacob Blumenthal, CEO of the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, told RNS, “Any efforts to address the intolerable episodes of antisemitism that Jewish students have endured at Columbia University must guarantee due process under the law.”

Rabbi Moshe Hauer, executive vice president of the Orthodox Union, had a different opinion. He told The New York Times that “new, aggressive and legal tactics are clearly needed” to deal with antisemitism.

It is not yet clear how immigration officials learned about Khalil or what he is being charged with. In emails Khalil sent to Columbia administrators, he knew he was being targeted and sought protection.

“Since yesterday, I have been subjected to a vicious, coordinated and dehumanizing doxxing campaign led by Columbia affiliates Shai Davidai and David Lederer who, among others, have labeled me a security threat and called for my deportation,” he wrote in an email obtained by the Zeteo news organization, referring by name to current and former Columbia faculty who have allegedly gone after him in a doxxing campaign. (Doxxing is when personally identifiable information about an individual or organization is made public

Meanwhile, The Intercept reported that the WhatsApp group Columbia Alumni for Israel, which has over 1,000 members, sought the deportation of any international student critical of Israel.

It is also possible Columbia University itself provided immigration agents with information. The university was subpoenaed by the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce last year and asked to turn over all disciplinary proceedings against pro-Palestinian protesters since Oct. 7, 2023. Columbia submitted the documents in compliance with the committee’s Aug. 21 subpoena, raising concerns about confidentiality and student privacy, including violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

Last year, Khalil was suspended from his graduate program for his role in the campus demonstrations, but the suspension was reversed for lack of evidence, and he completed his degree in December 2024.

Khalil was active in Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a coalition of student organizations that see Palestine as the vanguard for their collective liberation. He is married, and his wife, a U.S. citizen, is eight months pregnant.

Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg of Malkhut, a progressive Jewish congregation in Queens, attended Monday’s rally near Columbia, saying she felt compelled to speak out against Khalil’s arrest.

“I need to make it very clear that the Trump administration and the way they speak about protecting Jews from antisemitism does not stand for us, for me, and that the majority of the Jewish community in this country cares about higher education, cares about free speech,” she said. “As a Jew, as a rabbi, as a Jewish leader, it’s very important to me for Americans to understand that (Trump)

SEE

The Arrest of Mahmoud Khalil and the Struggle Ahead

Could Trump arrest us in the middle of the night for speaking our minds? He already has

Arrest of pro-Palestinian activist sparks outrage, Trump says 'first of many'

ICE Arrests Palestinian Green Card Holder Who Helped Lead Columbia's Gaza Solidarity Camp

Trump admin detains pro-Palestinian campus protest leader

US detains pro-Palestinian campus protest leader: union