from Mondoweiss
As a Palestinian, I learned very young that our very existence was a form of protest. Every family gathering that turned into a political discussion and every celebration existed in defiance of forces that would rather see us disappear. This is why the detention of Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil strikes at the core of my being—I recognize in his abduction the same suffocating tactics used to silence Palestinians for generations, now deployed on American soil against those who dare speak our name.
Khalil’s detention by ICE agents on March 8, marks a watershed moment in American democracy. As his pregnant wife watched helplessly, government agents took away a legal permanent resident whose only “crime” was serving as a negotiator in campus protests calling for university divestment from companies profiting from Israel’s Genocide on Gaza.
Let us be clear: Mahmoud Khalil is a political prisoner—detained not for
any recognizable crime, but for criticizing Israel. There is no law
against calling for the end of genocide, nor should there be in a
constitutional democracy. Yet the Trump administration has effectively
created such a crime, linking legitimate criticism of a colonial state
to “antisemitism,” by abducting and detaining a green card holder solely
for his political expression...
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