Why Jews should not overthink Khalil Mahmoud

Prior to the November 2024 election, I published an article urging Jews to “Vote for Israel.” The article highlighted that college campuses had been flooded by a nasty wave of antisemitic harassment and violence. Most notoriously, Columbia flirted with becoming Judenrein due to the toxic combination of an illegal encampment and complicity by the school’s failed leadership. I asked: “How will Jews respond?” and whether we would “demand that our children be treated better.”

Khalil Mahmoud’s case represents a Rorschach test of our community’s response. Many Jews appropriately have applauded, even if cautiously, the Trump administration’s actions to stomp out campus antisemitism and send a loud message that threats of violence against Jews will not be tolerated — especially by non-U.S. citizens whose presence in our country is a privilege, not a right.

Disappointingly, far too many Jews have missed the forest for the trees, allowing their hatred of President Trump to cloud judgment and eclipse the sacred obligation to stand up for our people during these dangerous days.

To those who want to make this about Trump, it is not. Hamas is a barbaric terrorist organization committed to destroying our people. They are a modern-day Amalek, whom the Torah explicitly commands us to eradicate — in fact, we just read that edict during Shabbat Zachor immediately prior to Purim. Hamas is Haman; Haman is Hamas. Supporting either is an act of war against the Jews. Full stop.

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Khalil is accused of openly supporting Hamas and its goal of “resistance” by any means necessary, rallying thousands of others to the savage cause, and fostering an overtly antisemitic environment on Columbia’s campus. We should support efforts by our government to use every tool in the arsenal to hold Khalil (and Columbia) accountable, let the process play out in the courts, and stop overthinking this one.

Who is Khalil Mahmoud and why is he being deported?

According to public reports, here is a brief profile of Khalil Mahmoud, a 30-year-old former Columbia graduate student, a Syrian national who has a U.S. green card:

• Khalil has served as one of the most prominent leaders of the Columbia’s “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” movement; he helped organize and lead the illegal occupation of campus buildings (whose greatest hits included smashing windows, defacing property, and disrupting classes), resulting in a dangerously hostile environment toward Jewish students.

• Khalil led Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD). By their own words, CUAD stands for a “total eradication of Western civilization,” and  “the destruction of the United States and Israel.” CUAD praised the October 7 attacks as a “revolution.”

• Khalil was filmed proudly supporting armed resistance, calling it “legitimate,” allegedly distributed Hamas marketing material praising the October 7 massacres and encouraged an uprising against Israel and Jews around the world.

What about the law?

The administration’s ability to deport Khalil is subject to legal challenges that will proceed through the court system. He has a green card, which entitles him to some but not all protections afforded to a U.S. citizen. Green card holders can face deportation if they violate the terms of their immigration status, including reasonable grounds to believe that they have engaged in or are likely to engage in terrorist activities.

The First Amendment is relevant as a talking point when debating the larger issue, but it is not relevant on campus — Columbia can curtail the First Amendment rights of its students. This is a much more complex issue, but the government’s actions are far from frivolous.

Clearly, singling out Khalil and Columbia is intended to send a chilling message to Hamas supporters on campuses across the country — a goal Jews should support, mindful of appropriate guardrails to balance free expression with the full-throated embrace of terrorists and intimidation of Jewish students.

But keep in mind that Khalil is not some random 18-year-old freshman who misguidedly stood on a college green holding a sign scribbled in support of a ceasefire. No one is coming after students who peacefully protest a political issue. To the contrary, the administration emphasized that they have not sought Khalil’s deportation because of his attendance at a protest, but because Khalil led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.

Under the logic of those who oppose holding Khalil accountable for his actions (not just his words), we would have to wait for him to move from openly supporting a terrorist organization and threatening violence against Jews to affirmatively carrying out an act of terror or violence.

This is an absurd standard, under which there would never be an instance where the government could take prophylactic measures against a non-citizen to avoid violence against Jews.

Prominent Jewish political leaders — most notably Senator Chuck Schumer and the Upper West Side’s Representative Jerry Nadler — failed to visit Columbia to call for an immediate end to the antisemitic campus takeover. Tellingly, Schumer, Nadler, and a bevy of Jewish organizations have doubled down on their cowardice by voicing strong disapproval of the government’s (belated) crackdown on campus protests — along with its tough measures against colleges that incubated, birthed, and raised these protests to their dangerously predictable fruition.

Save for a few courageous Democrats (including Jon Fetterman — whom my wife affectionately refers to as “Yonatan Fetterman”), the party largely has condemned Khalil’s punishment.

The hypocrisy of Khalil’s defenders

It is important to note the rich hypocrisy of Khalil’s defenders who enthusiastically supported and encouraged the substantial curtailment of First Amendment rights in the name of purportedly wiping out other forms of hate, including microaggressions. For example, many of the same people enthusiastically deploying the First Amendment as a shield for Khalil were architects or avid adherents of punishing people on college campuses for misusing preferred pronouns or employing any form of language deemed to be racially insensitive — speech indisputably protected by the First Amendment if done on a public street.

Here’s a test: Imagine a white German national with a green card dressed in KKK garb who deplorably organized others to illegally occupy a college campus, advocated for racial purity by handing out Nazi literature, and intimidated Black students. I have zero doubt that that person immediately (and appropriately) would be expelled and there would be no outrage in the streets, invocation of supposedly existential threats to the First Amendment, or condemnation of legal actions taken against the racist agitator (including deportation). The point being that advocating violence against Jews is subject to a different set of rules — and invokes way excessive hand-wringing by too many of our communal leaders.

Moreover, consider the following two examples of our government’s infringement of individual liberties that failed to elicit a similar response as the moral outrage of those defending Khalil. I mention these examples to reveal the naked partisanship — rather than intellectual honesty — that seems to be driving people to denounce the Trump administration’s efforts to combat antisemitism. As an independent voter, normally I would find this hypocrisy amusing, but today the stakes are too high.

Example No. 1: Biden administration sanctions and visa restrictions against Jews in the West Bank. At the height of Israel’s defensive war against Hamas, the Biden administration subjected Jews living in the West Bank to vaguely worded financial sanctions and immigration restrictions (including U.S. visa limitations). The sanctions were imposed via a February 2024 executive order that allowed the U.S. to target people who “directly or indirectly” took “actions” that “threatened the peace, security, or stability of the West Bank” and hurt U.S. foreign policy objectives — i.e., the order was not limited to violent acts; it granted broad discretion to punish people whose practices were at odds with the administration’s foreign-policy views.

The State Department issued several rounds of sanctions against Israelis living in Judea and Samaria, alleging everything from violence against Palestinians to merely providing security guards to allegedly illegal outposts. Advocacy groups predictably initiated legal challenges against these restrictions, arguing, among other things, that they violated free speech rights (especially because there are numerous U.S. citizens who live in the West Bank).

In response to President Biden’s contentious actions, I do not recall there being protests on the streets, or any disapproval voiced by left-wing Jewish advocacy groups warning of the inevitable parade of horribles.

Example No. 2: Obama’s “Dear Colleague” letters. In 2011, President Obama’s Justice Department famously threatened universities to fall in line with the government’s controversial decision to lessen due process protections for men accused of sexual impropriety on college campuses. The administration specifically threatened to withhold federal funding from schools that did not comply.

The merits of Obama’s actions are beside the point; I mention this controversy because it raised legitimate constitutional concerns, yet there was no outrage by the usual suspects.

Why Jews should support the punishment of Khalil and Columbia

As for Columbia, the once-venerable institution has had decades to get its act together. Antisemitism has festered within its walls for as far back as people can remember, rotting its foundation. For those unfamiliar with Columbia’s unseemly history, I recommend watching “Columbia Unbecoming,” a documentary chronicling intimidation and harassment of Jewish Columbia students in the early 2000s.

Columbia was warned. Following its most recent failure to protect Jewish students, Columbia’s president stepped down under intense fire, resigning after effectively losing control of the campus. (Jewish students were advised not to return to campus after Passover 2024 due to safety concerns.)

While Columbia’s new administration has taken steps to improve things on campus, that does not mean that our government should not withhold taxpayer dollars for Columbia’s original sin of becoming the poster child and standard bearer of an antisemitic national college protest movement that came after our kids. You can hate Trump but also recognize that Columbia is ground zero, Khalil is very dangerous, and both should be held accountable.

I also applaud the administration’s actions against Khalil and Columbia because of the downstream impact. Since October 7, other schools have copied-and-pasted Columbia’s model, creating campus environments wherein Jewish students (along with their non-Jewish supporters) were intimidated, socially ostracized, and worse.

Earlier this month, the Harvard Law School student body voted in favor of BDS, falsely accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. While people may shrug off yet another BDS vote because ultimately Harvard won’t divest from Israel, the symbolism matters. Why should Jews have to put up with this nonsense?

President Biden warned campus protesters in May 2024: “There is a right to protest, but not a right to cause chaos … destroying property is not a peaceful protest. It’s against the law. Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancelling of classes and graduations — none of this is a peaceful protest.”

After failing to heed President Biden’s warning, and doubling down on Jew hate, President Biden’s successor meted out punishment against Khalil and Columbia. Why is that such a shock?

As my teenagers say, “it’s not that deep.” We must use all legally available means to fight those who seek to destroy us.

Waving a grogger on Purim is fun for the whole family, but it is no substitute to fighting back against modern day Hamans, especially those cloaked in Ivy League garb.

Ari M. Berman lives in West Caldwell and is a member of that town’s Congregation Agudath Israel. He is an attorney.