After his detention, the Columbia protester is on a media tour to boost his image—but won’t condemn Hamas.
Columbia University graduate and anti-Israel activist Mahmoud Khalil has been on a public-relations tour after his brief detention while the U.S. government seeks to deport him. He now seems intent on rehabilitating his image. The press shouldn’t let him get away with it.
The U.S. government wants to deport him over what the State Department calls antisemitic conduct, including his alleged leadership of the terror-sympathizing group Columbia University Apartheid Divest. Mr. Khalil denies that he led the group, which, in addition to organizing acts of trespassing and property damage in and around the Morningside Heights neighborhood, has espoused support for terrorism.
An immigration judge in May ruled the Algerian citizen removable due to the State Department’s assessment that he poses a threat to the U.S. foreign-policy goal of combating antisemitism. But Mr. Khalil appealed, and a federal judge in New Jersey ordered his release in June while his case proceeds, saying he isn’t an immediate threat. Since then, he has returned to anti-Israel activism and hit the media circuit.
Continue reading the entire piece here at the Wall Street Journal (paywall)
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Tal Fortgang is an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He was a 2023 Sapir Fellow
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