The arrest of Mahmoud Khalil … a political bullying to intimidate the supporters of the Palestinian issue in America

The arrest of a master’s student at Columbia University in New York City, Mahmoud Khalil, represents a serious escalation in the campaign of US President Donald Trump’s repressive against the legislative rights defenders of the Palestinian rights, demanding to end the occupation, the war of extermination and the suspension of their universities investments in Israeli companies and institutions. It is necessary to link this escalation to a number of American internal policies. Trump’s policies and its consequences also cannot be limited to Palestine, but must be seen as a continuity and an inevitable consequence of the policies of the Democratic Party and the leadership of former President Joe Biden during the Israeli aggression on Gaza and before, which was characterized by a severe hostility to the opponents and the provision of military, political and diplomatic cover for Israeli policies.

Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian who describes those who know him as the background, calm, polite and smart, and was one of the leaders of the students who negotiated with the administration of Colombia University during the protest period. Mahmoud Khalil’s wife, who holds American citizenship while she is pregnant with her eighth month, preferred not to reveal her name, described his arrest as “kidnapping.” It is striking in the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil that, according to his lawyer’s statement, when he was accompanied by his wife and is about to enter university housing at Columbia University in New York where they live.

Mahmoud Khalil sent a message to the University of Colombia before his arrest, asking for protection

The arrest of Mahmoud Khalil

According to the defense team’s statements, Mahmoud Khalil and his wife, last Sunday, approached civilian clothes that later defined themselves as agents of the Ministry of Internal Security. They said they would leave him because his study visa was canceled. Although his wife is proven to customers that he is a permanent residence (a green card), they have received orders to arrest him. His lawyers immediately submitted a petition in New York, demanding his release. But the federal government transferred him to Louisiana within hours, which is 1600 km from that court, to complicate access to it and prevent the intervention of the New York Court, according to his defense team. Then his team submitted another petition to demand his return to New York so that he could obtain legal representation. And a federal court issued an order, last Monday, to set the date of a hearing, and the government was prevented from deporting Mahmoud Khalil until the court orders otherwise.

There are a lot of question marks about the role played by the University of Colombia and its grace of the Immigration and Customs Administration (ICE), to enter the campus. The problem is increasing when we discover that Mahmoud Khalil, according to the American “Drop Site” website, sent a message to the President of Colombia University, Katrina Armstrong, one day before his arrest, asking her to protect him after being targeted in a campaign to defame and distort his reputation. Mahmoud Khalil wrote: “I could not sleep for fear that the Immigration and Customs Administration or a dangerous person will come to my home. I ask you to intervene and provide the necessary protection to prevent further harm.” Columbia University administration has not officially and directly commented on his arrest, despite various press invitations. But the university referred journalists to a general statement in which it talked about its commitment to the law and its implementation, and that entering its buildings and university campus by immigration agents requires a judicial order. She also refused to comment on whether she had a prior knowledge of trying to arrest him.

The irony is that the Trump administration has recently canceled $ 400 million of scholarships and loans to the University of Colombia on the pretext of not doing enough to combat anti -Semitism at the university. But the major paradox does not lie only in the deliberate confusion between anti -Semitism and the criticism of Israel, but because the administration of the University of Colombia, and a long list of other university departments, suppressed the student movement against war and supporting the Palestinian issue in a number of roads, including preventing demonstrations in its campus and resolving sit -ins by force and allowing the New York Police to enter its sanctuary and pursue its students and its persons against the war and other procedures Arbitration and oppression. Law specialists and human rights organizations condemned the statements of the US administration officials, and the same arrest, because it violates the American constitution and its first item that protects freedom of expression and gathering. More than a thousand people demonstrated in New York, last Monday, in protest against the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, demanding his release, and hundreds of Chicago, Illinois, went out to demand the release of Mahmoud Khalil on Tuesday evening.

The protesters confirmed that they will continue their votes against “human rights violations” by the Trump administration. In less than 48 hours since his arrest, more than a million people in the United States took place on a petition calling for the release of Mahmoud Khalil. Questions were raised about the legality of detention himself and the abolition of a person with a green card if he did not commit any legal violation and there are no charges against him. All of this comes in light of media reports that the Trump administration is preparing to issue a presidential order, similar to what it did during its first reign (2017-2021), and prevent the entry of citizens of a number of Muslim -majority countries to the United States. The American President showed the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil in a post on social media, in which he said: “This is the first arrest in a series of upcoming arrests.” He added: “The Immigration and Customs Administration has been arrested proudly Mahmoud Khalil, a foreign, extremist student supporting Hamas on the campus of Columbia University.”

Demonstrations were organized in New York and Chicago in support of Mahmoud Khalil

As for his Foreign Minister Marco Rubio, he posted on the “X” platform (Twitter “, a threat to deport the American residence holders (a green card) participating in the protests supporting Palestine. He wrote a comment on a news Agency for the Associated Press, in which he dealt with the case of Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest: “We will cancel visas and/or green cards for Hamas supporters in America so that they can be deported.” The Ministry of Internal Security also described the detention as “support for the executive orders of President Trump, which prohibits anti -Semitism.” In the claim, a dangerous confusion between the opposition of the Israeli occupation and the extermination war and the Semitic Reduced, which is also escalating in Western countries, including the United States, but has nothing to do with Palestine or to combat the policies of the American -backed Israeli government. Not to mention that many opponents of Israeli policies and participants in the movement are American Jews, students, professors and others.

American allegations

In returning to the Ministry of Internal Security, it also claimed in its publication that “Mahmoud Khalil led activities allied with Hamas, classified as a terrorist organization (in the United States).” This increases the escalation because it is unclear, what are the “allied activities with Hamas”? Is opposition to war and genocide “an alliance with Hamas”? Even if someone had a supporter of Hamas without having a direct relationship or working with it (if we want to take into account that the United States is classifying Hamas as a terrorist organization), is a “opinion” that has become criminal?

It is striking here that the entry of senior American politicians, the US President and his foreign minister, increases the symbolism of the arrest of Khalil and predicts severe pressure from senior American officials may be practiced directly or indirectly on the independence of American institutions, including the courts. The American courts showed its independence to a large extent and formed an obstacle and a challenge before Trump during his first term, and prevented his implementation of a number of racist or problematic policies. The entry of Trump and his foreign minister to the line also shows that the issue is primarily a political issue aims to take one of the symbols of the student movement and the movement at the University of Colombia as a scapegoat, not to intimidate other students and continue to suppress the student movement that started under the administration of Biden and its democratic party, but also as a kind of political bullying to make Mahmoud Khalil and the movement is an example for those who begged himself to object to the policies of the state (foreign and interior), Palestine, Palestine, Palestine, Palestine, Palestine, Palestine, Palestine, Palestine, Palestine, Palestine First, but after eliminating the movement, the role will come to others, and it is only a matter of time, if it can implement its plans.