‘Please Cry for Me, Palestina, . . .’
Former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil could very well be singing his own rendition of “Evita” in a Louisiana detention facility as he awaits his long-overdue deportation to whatever terrorist-loving Islamist state will have him. Thankfully, no one in the Trump administration is listening. And no one who cares about liberalism, the United States, Western civilization and Israel should mind one bit either.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio promises that many more students who joined antisemitic mobs and participated in campus takeovers will be deported, as well.
A federal judge temporarily blocked Khalil’s removal from the United States. A temporary setback. He has no authority to compel the United States to reinstate the green card for Columbia’s pro-Hamas ringleader. Khalil is not a citizen. He’s a glorified tourist with the aspirations of a terrorist.
Let’s recall how we got here. Columbia became the hotbed for antisemitic agitation and campus upheaval arising out of the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack. A war in Gaza soon extended to college campuses and Islamist-infested European capitals.
Khalil was one of the chief student leaders who made campus life toxic for anyone who was Jewish, believed that Israel had a right to defend itself, knew that Palestinians were causalities of war and not victims of “genocide,” and that Hamas sacrificed Gazans to serve as propaganda for nefarious emissaries like Khalil.
Columbia was not alone. The entire Ivy League lost its mind. Students—many of them Muslim, others easily manipulated by anti-American faculty—instantly sided with the terrorists and demanded that Israel not retaliate.
At that very moment, the value of an Ivy League education plummeted, and the presumption that respectable people inhabit such schools was shattered. Who knows whether the mystique will ever return.
Nearly 40 percent of Columbia’s student body are comprised of nonresident foreigners. Which raises the question: Why are American taxpayers annually providing Columbia with $1.3 billion in federal funding when half the school are not Americans, and many come from countries that hate America?
President Trump recently stripped Columbia of $400 million. It’s not enough. But more importantly, many students are deportable and should be sent home.
Time for a dose of honesty: Those keffiyeh-masked, shrieking agitators—both “students” and “faculty”—were never in the United States to actually learn anything or produce scholarship. They were, and still are, on a maniacal mission to cause havoc: spreading lies about Israel, undermining American institutions, calling for the end of Western civilization.
Those keffiyeh-masked, shrieking agitators—both “students” and “faculty”—were never in the United States to actually learn anything or produce scholarship. They were, and still are, on a maniacal mission to cause havoc: spreading lies about Israel, undermining American institutions, calling for the end of Western civilization.
We admit them because they pay the full freight on tuition and gratify Qatar’s largesse in donating to Ivy League schools. These students and faculty are graded on both a DEI and Islamist’s curve—with extra credit given for antisemitic advocacy.
We won’t miss them—any of them. There is no chance any will discover a cure for cancer.
And yet Khalil is being referred to as a First Amendment martyr; punished for his criticism of Israel. Actually, he has spoken quite freely for the two years he’s been in the United States, and he has gone well beyond criticizing Israeli policies.
Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a campus organization that he leads, openly states that “we are fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization”; and “we support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance.” He and his group distributed flyers praising the October 7 massacre.
Mere criticism of Israel?
When not on assignment for Hamas, he married an American citizen and turned his student visa into a green card. Green cards, however, are not golden tickets. When the privileges are abused, permanent residency can be revoked.
Pursuant to the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Secretary of State can determine that a green card holder is engaged in activities adversarial to the foreign policy objectives of the United States.
Since 9/11, the United States has been at war with terrorist entities such as al-Qaeda, the Taliban, ISIS. The Houthis have fired rockets at American ships. Hamas has taken Americans hostage. Israel is an ally of the United States, and Hamas has a charter that unabashedly makes known its desire to destroy Israel and kill all Jews everywhere.
In every way imaginable, Khalil acted contrary to America’s foreign policy.
Hamas openly praised students and faculty who supported them, emboldening them to scream “genocide” and bring ruin to America. Acting at the behest of Hamas constitutes “material support” for a designated foreign terrorist organization. Such actions violate both the Patriot Act and Antiterrorism Act. Under 8 USC 1182, aliens are “inadmissible for . . . endors[ing] terrorist activity,” or representing a political group that does. Yet further reasons to have him deported.
Islamists and their fanbase are truly without irony. The same people chanting for Khalil’s release, on the basis of “free speech,” are the ones who tore down posters of Israelis and Americans who were taken hostage by Hamas.
Khalil’s pregnant wife has weighed in. Apparently, she is bereft without him. Hmm, so, too, were the loved ones of the Jewish babies burned alive, and the teenage girls gangraped and mutilated. One pregnant Israeli mother had her baby dissected from her body and left to die outside of her womb.
Khalil’s wife will most assuredly have a far more civilized and successful pregnancy.
We hear a lot about Khalil’s First Amendment rights. Israel’s war in Gaza has stifled constitutional scholars everywhere. Suddenly, no one remembers how the First Amendment works.
Israel’s war in Gaza has stifled constitutional scholars everywhere. Suddenly, no one remembers how the First Amendment works.
Even if Khalil was a citizen and not subject to deportation by order of the Secretary of State, the campus protests that resulted in his arrest and detention fall outside the operation of the First Amendment. Not all speech is free. Some is nonspeech—words and actions that are subject to regulation.
The campus protests were not peaceful assemblies. Supreme Court precedent excludes “true threats,” “fighting words,” or “the incitement of imminent lawlessness” from free speech treatment. “Globalize the Intifada” and “From the River to the Sea . . .” might make a Jew-hater’s heart stir, but if that’s what you’re chanting, the First Amendment simply does not apply to you.
Nearly a year ago, the campus rabbi at Columbia notified Jewish students that they should stay off campus and attend classes virtually. It simply wasn’t safe. Remember the congressional testimony of the university presidents who flunked their First Amendment test? They didn’t know that calling for the death of Jews is not constitutionally protected speech.
Four Ivy League presidents lost their jobs; Khalil will lose his green card.
Hopefully Rubio will keep his promise, and place student terrorists at a distance.
Thane Rosenbaum is a novelist, essayist, law professor and Distinguished University Professor at Touro University, where he directs the Forum on Life, Culture & Society. He is the legal analyst for CBS News Radio. His most recent book is titled “Saving Free Speech … From Itself,” and his forthcoming book is titled, “Beyond Proportionality: Israel’s Just War in Gaza.”
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