Margaret Kimberley, BAR: Mahmoud Khalil and the Criminalization of Anti-Zionism

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Mahmoud Khalil and the Criminalization of Anti-Zionism

Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist

12 Mar 2025

The influence of apartheid Israel extends all over the world. Its supporters demand that anyone expressing anti-zionist viewpoints be ostracized, harassed, or arrested. Now, zionists have added demands that non-citizens speaking out against Israeli war crimes be deported from the U.S. 

“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 began.

Their attacks have incited a wave of hate, including calls for my deportation and death threats. I have outlined the wider context below, yet Columbia has not provided any meaningful support or resources in response to this escalating threat, 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.”

Mahmoud Khalil email to Columbia University interim president on March 7, one day before he was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Nations that claim to protect the rights to speak and assembly freely are instead violating those rights. Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil is just the latest victim of an insidious trend, in which private individuals and organizations demand that their governments punish anyone who publicly speaks out against Israel or United States policies toward that government. The requests are made quite publicly, as the Israel friendly New York Post confirmed in a headline, “Zionist org preps list of foreign pro-Hamas students, hoping Trump will deport them.” 

All over “liberal” democracies the ability to speak out against the zionist state is under attack. In Germany , the use of Arabic in protests has been banned. In the United States students protesting the Gaza genocide have been under various forms of attack since Joe Biden was in office. Students have been suspended, faculty have lost their jobs, and anyone with even a small public voice has been harassed. As of June 2024, more than 3,500 people on college campuses were arrested in protests.

Now the Donald Trump administration has upped the ante from the days of the Joe Biden commitment to aid Israeli war crimes at every opportunity. Giving Israel money to commit genocide is not enough for the Trump team. On March 6 the administration announced that a student protester had their student visa revoked and that a new program was in place which would use A.I. to identify students who are not U.S. citizens for the purpose of deporting them. Neither the student nor the institution was named, but it is now assumed that Khalil was the person in question. In their zeal to make an example of him, they failed to do a rudimentary check of his immigration status. When four plain clothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers approached Khalil and his pregnant wife, they were surprised to learn that he is in fact a U.S. permanent resident, a green card holder whose rights cannot be easily dismissed. One of the officers was identified as Elvin Hernandez , who was honored by Trump at the 2019 State of the Union address.

The cryptic announcement of a student visa revocation was followed by another declaration on March 7. The Justice Department’s Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism canceled more than $400 million in government grants allocated to Columbia University “due to the school’s continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” On March 8, Khalil was detained.

Columbia University was no innocent bystander in these events. The university continues to bow to pressure from the federal government and even some of their board members in silencing students. Columbia has instituted a secretive disciplinary process , which includes signing a non-disclosure agreement before they can access evidence being used against them. Students have been asked to name others and were falsely accused of having made statements they had not made or being present at protests they hadn’t attended. Mahmoud Khalil was himself subjected to this treatment. “I have around 13 allegations against me, most of them are social media posts that I had nothing to do with.” He refused to sign the nondisclosure agreement and was threatened with not being able to graduate but he retained an attorney and Columbia backed down. Columbia has not responded to questions regarding Khalil’s arrest and whether they assisted ICE in an effort to placate the Trump administration and getting their funding back.

Activists are not the only targets in the campaign to silence those who speak out against war crimes and genocide. Independent journalists are also vulnerable. Ali Abunimah of Electronic Intifada was arrested in Switzerland . His colleague Asa Winstanley’s home in London was raided by police and his devices were seized. Richard Medhurst has been arrested in the United Kingdom and in Austria as well. Yves Engler was recently arrested in Montreal, Canada.

In most of these cases the arrests were ultimately proven to have been carried out improperly.  Zionist individuals and officials demanded that Engler and Abunimah be arrested. In both cases the charges were found to be invalid even under the laws of the local jurisdictions. In the case of Medhurst, a vague charge of supporting a “proscribed organization” has never been explained and his case has been postponed several times, depriving him of the ability to defend himself. Clearly the goal is to intimidate and silence him and others. Charges of violating the law are meant to impede his work and call his journalistic bona fides into question.

Their accusers are no doubt aware that charges may be dismissed. The goal of pressing ahead regardless is twofold. First, the person in question is prevented from publicly condemning zionist acts and support for Israel from western governments while they are under arrest or sanction. Second, even if charges are dismissed, the arrests are a warning to others that the same treatment awaits anyone who might consider taking a public stance against zionism. Very few people want to end up in jail, even for a few days like Abunimah and Engler.

The declaration of war against free speech is ironically proof of success. Israel is a pariah nation, condemned by most of the world’s governments and their people. The U.S. and its allies may give weapons and political impunity but they can’t undo Israel’s status as a pariah nation.

They also can’t dispense with due process. Khalil called one of his attorneys while he was being detained and she in turn filed a habeas corpus petition in the middle of the night which proved useful after ICE moved him to a facility 1,000 miles away in Louisiana. A federal judge prevented his removal and called all parties to meet in his chambers on March 12.

It doesn’t matter that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and even the president himself post bombastically on social media. Rubio declared on the X platform , “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported”  and included a link to an article about Khalil’s arrest. Trump joined in with a characteristically ignorant post calling Khalil a “Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student.”

As of now, it is still true that only immigration judges can revoke green cards or order deportations. Non-citizens also have due process rights in this country and the system cannot be obstructed on the whims of people who want protest against Israel to end. Rubio and Trump and the people who have instigated these actions must still bring evidence to court and follow a process that gives some expectation of fairness.

Mahmoud Khalil’s case is a warning to everyone who takes human and civil rights protections seriously. Zionism is not just a threat to the lives of Palestinians, but to the rights of people all over the world.

Margaret Kimberley is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents . You can support her work on Patreon and also find it on the Twitter , Bluesky , and Telegram platforms. She can be reached via email at margaret dot kimberley at blackagendareport dot com.