On March 8th, federal immigration agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a former Palestinian student activist at Columbia University, in his New York home and moved him to a detention facility in Louisiana. Khalil, a recent graduate from Columbia’s public affairs masters program and a prominent leader in the school’s movement to pressure the university to divest from companies complicit in Israel’s genocide, is a legal permanent resident, and is not accused of any crime. The Trump administration has pointed to his political activism as the reason for why he should be deported, invoking a rarely-used Cold War-era law to argue that Khalil’s presence in the US is contrary to US foreign policy interests. Jewish American organizations are split over the administration’s reactions: The Anti-Defamation League has praised it, other mainstream groups have remained silent, and liberal Zionist and anti-Zionist Jewish organizations have sharply condemned it.

On this episode of On the Nose, editor-in-chief Arielle Angel, associate editor Mari Cohen, and senior reporter Alex Kane discuss the Jewish political reaction to the arrest and detention of Khalil. They talk about how the mainstream Jewish establishment paved the way for this authoritarian act, whether liberal Jewish opposition to the arrest could portend new political alignments, and the rise of new reactionary Jewish groups such as Betar and Mothers Against College Antisemitism. 

Note: When this podcast was recorded, the American Jewish Committee had not yet made a statement on Khalil. On March 12th, the AJC released a statement condemning Khalil’s political speech but calling for “due process” in deportation proceedings against him. 

Articles Mentioned and Further Reading

“A growing number of Jewish groups are condemning Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest,” Ben Sales, Jewish Telegraphic Agency 

“The Push to ‘Deactivate’ Students for Justice in Palestine,” Alex Kane, Jewish Currents

“Why the ADL is encouraging Jews to invest in Tesla,” Arno Rosenfeld, The Forward

“Elon Musk, the Jews, and the ADL,” Know Your Enemy podcast

“Campus protest crackdowns claim to be about antisemitism – but they’re part of a rightwing plan,” Arielle Angel, The Guardian

“The Boomerang Comes Back,” Noura Erakat, Boston Review

“In leaked messages, members of ‘Columbia Alumni for Israel’ group chat work to identify, punish pro-Palestinian protesters,” Sarah Huddleston, Columbia Spectator

“The Astroturf “Civil Rights” Groups Fueling Trump’s Deportation Attacks,” Emmaia Gelman, Academe

“Trump Administration Seeks to Expel a Green-Card Holder Over Student Protests,” Edward Wong, Charlie Savage, Hamed Aleaziz, and Luis Ferré-Sadurní, The New York Times