Jews don’t have a right to live.
That is the toxic sentiment of the man who gained notoriety by ushering in anarchy disguised as activism on the campus of New York’s Columbia University.
As a graduate from Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, Mahmoud Khalil may have initially aspired to get a proper American education, but another agenda captured his interest – to be the voice of Palestinian liberation, stirring up motivated students seeking to attach themselves to a cause.
Relying on their ignorance and propensity to act as a trend-following bloc, Khalil, who was born in a Syrian refugee camp in 1995 and obtained Algerian citizenship, was the perfect candidate to head up a firestorm, influencing impressionable minds that were ripe for the pickings.
Having already worked for UNRWA, the Hamas sympathizer wasted little time disseminating his pro-Palestinian activism, which called for the university to completely divest from Israel. It wasn’t until ICE got involved, following Trump’s inauguration, that action against the megaphone-wielding supporter of terrorists was taken, and he was finally arrested and detained. Authorities are seeking to have him deported, despite his green card status and pregnant American wife. However, a judge has temporarily blocked that from happening.
Khalil seen as an inspiration to many
Committed to the destruction of both Israel and America, Khalil was seen as the inspiration behind the massive unrest, which not only took over the campus but also prevented Jewish students from accessing their classes without fear of physical harm.
Khalil’s lofty goal of liberation is two-fold – replacing Israel with Palestine and returning America to its indigenous people. For him, these two countries were illegitimately built by colonialists who seized land that didn’t belong to them, hence the need for liberation.
To achieve that objective, Khalil, along with his followers, are willing to “demonstrate until Zionism ends.” (“The ideologies of Mahmoud Khalil’s CUAD,” JPost, March 12).
BUT THIS is where it gets a little tricky, because the threat essentially promises that peace will not return to Columbia’s campus until Israel is emptied out, rendering it a Palestinian homeland while the dream of Zionism is permanently extinguished.
Improperly identified by Khalil, Zionism is merely the fulfillment of Jews returning to their homeland, and that would include those skeletal figures who survived the Nazi concentration camps. To refer to them as fitting the profile of colonialists who bulldozed their way into a sovereign country, already inhabited by indigenous people, is the same absurdity that ignores the fact that Israel became a legitimate and sovereign nation once a majority vote of world nations agreed to recognize it as such.
The moment it was attacked by five different countries, all bets were off, as the spoils of war increased the land size which legitimately then became part and parcel of Israel, territory which Arabs could have retained and turned into their own sovereign state. But that never happened, because it was always all or nothing for them.
Fast forward 76 years, and that is still the mantra of those like Mahmoud Khalil, who represents Israel as part of an imperialist system. But why not co-condemn the US, especially at a time when so many American young people are ashamed of their country? To link the two is a clever way to strengthen his case, since they both fit nicely into the Woke box of victim and oppressor.
Yet, it’s not enough to claim that Israeli and American land was stolen. Because when viewed as a globalist struggle against anti-imperialists, the implication is that bad people have created this injustice, and those people no longer have a right to live.
It is only the “free Palestine” movement that solves the problem by killing two birds with one stone – first Israel and then America, both of whom are guilty of inflicting so much pain to marginalized humanity.
So, what do you do when the solution is to end the lives of the perpetrators of suffering? According to Khalil, the answer is armed violence and terrorism. Through the organization CUAD (Columbia University Apartheid Divest), of which he is a senior activist, no apology is made for their firm belief that Zionism is an evil ideology, necessitating armed resistance in order to kill the oppressors. “Any means necessary” is how they express the measures needed to eradicate their enemy.
AND WHY wouldn’t they come to that conclusion? The way they see it, their enemy is an “oppressor equipped with the most lethal military force on the planet. When you’ve exhausted all peaceful means of resolution, violence is the only path forward.”
But what peaceful means of resolution have been employed by the same individuals who claim that Jews don’t have the right to live? Israel has been confronted with 76 years of war, culminating in the 2023 brutal massacre on its own soil of more than 1,200 innocents and the kidnapping of another 250, many of whom were killed or died in captivity and many others who are still there.
Putting Israel aside, if you’re an American Jewish student, just trying to attend classes on a New York campus, you would also be in danger of losing your life if law enforcement was not present to stop the violent clashes that are taking place every day, targeting Jews – most of whom are not even connected to Israel but, nonetheless, culpable by extension.
When Hamas and Hezbollah are seen to be the moral fighters battling the Israeli oppressor, the case is made, by their advocates, that the evil being fought by them is a worthy war, because if they can defeat the colonialists, then they will be liberating the people who have waited nearly eight decades to finally live in a country free from all Jewish presence.
But to carry that to its fullest goal, you not only have to get rid of all the Israeli Jews, you must then eliminate the remaining Diaspora Jews, especially those who support Zionism and the aspiration to return to their homeland. This is the life-long work to which Mahmoud Khalil is dedicated, and it’s the reason he will fight tooth and nail to remain in the country that will give him the best vantage point to succeed.
Stir the pot of American unrest, and it will help bring about the two objectives. Khalil may think he’s got the right message in the right place, but saying that Jews don’t have the right to live is about as un-American as it gets. And that’s the reason that he deserves to be deported.
The writer is a former Jerusalem elementary and middle school principal. She is also the author of Mistake-Proof Parenting, available on Amazon, based on the time-tested wisdom found in the Book of Proverbs.