Two Years of Genocide: Trump’s war on free speech began with Gaza

Last year Palestine Legal and the Center for Constitutional Rights published a report on the history of anti-terrorism laws in the United States.

The paper revealed how opposition to Palestinian rights helped shape “anti-terror” policies. The first and only time Congress declared a group to be a terrorist organization, lawmakers were targeting the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The first time Congress passed a law allowing private lawsuits against international terrorism, they were targeting the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF). The first time the word “terrorism” appeared in a federal statute was in a 1969 law that attempted to stop the United States from providing UNRWA with funding.

“I want to be clear: the argument here is not simply that the United States government used terrorism law to suppress Palestinians,” Darryl Li, an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago and principal author of the report told Mondoweiss at the time. “It is that many of the key developments of terrorism law were explicitly written with Palestine in mind.”

The report’s findings echo in the present day.

Just a few months after Donald Trump arrived at the White House, ICE agents arrested Columbia University student activist Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent U.S. resident and green card holder, in the lobby of his apartment building. Khalil’s pregnant wife, Noor Abdalla, repeatedly asked the officers to produce a warrant. They did not have one.

In the immediate aftermath of the abduction, Khalil’s whereabouts were unknown to his family and legal team. Ultimately, he was sent to an immigration facility in Jena, Louisiana, and detained for over 3 months before a federal judge ordered him released on bail.

“For decades, anti-Palestinian racism has driven efforts to expand U.S. laws and practices that are used to violently repress Palestinians, Arab Americans, and other communities,” wrote Khalil from the detention center. “That is precisely why I am being targeted.”

Khalil’s arrest set off a wave of similar ICE kidnappings throughout the country. Students and faculty were continually targeted over their connection to Palestine. Some, like Khalil, had become well-known names during the Gaza solidarity encampments across U.S. campuses. Others had looser connections to the movement. Rümeysa Öztürk, a PhD student at Tufts University, was snatched off the streets of Massachusetts and detained in Louisiana for simply writing an article calling on her school to boycott Israel.

In addition to activists being detained without charge, the Trump administration pulled millions in allocated university funds under the guise of combating antisemitism. Virtually every school impacted dutifully carried out its own internal crackdowns in hopes of ultimately receiving the money.

Trump’s war on free speech has inevitably moved far beyond Palestine. We’ve seen cuts to public broadcasting, lawsuits against newspapers, the firing of political opponents, and the suppression of government reports, just to name some of the attacks.

Last month, ABC suspended late-night television host Jimmy Kimmel after he criticized the White House’s reaction to Charlie Kirk’s murder. Shortly before the suspension, FCC chair and Trump loyalist Brendan Carr had threatened to revoke the network’s broadcast licenses if it failed to discipline Kimmel.

The Kimmel suspension led to a number of hyperbolic statements from establishment media. One such statement was from CNN’s Jake Tapper: “I thought it was pretty much the most direct infringement by the government on free speech that I’ve seen in my lifetime.”

Comments like Tapper’s consciously omit Trump’s ongoing suppression of the Palestine movement.

Kimmel is back on air, while students and faculty continue their fight for justice in court. A day after the host’s suspension was lifted, a Louisiana judge ordered Khalil to be deported for allegedly failing to disclose information on his green card application.

“When the immigration prosecutor, judge, and jailor all answer to Donald Trump, and that one man is eager to weaponize the system in a desperate bid to silence Mahmoud Khalil, a U.S. permanent resident whose only supposed sin is that he stands against an ongoing genocide in Palestine, this is the result,” said attorney Ramzi Kassem, a member of Khalil’s legal team, in a statement.

Israel’s reputation among the U.S. population was already declining before October 7, but polling shows that it has plummeted further after 2 years of genocide.

A new poll from The New York Times and Siena University shows that 34% of U.S. voters back Israel, compared to the 47% who supported Israel in the aftermath of October 7. The survey also found that a majority of voters oppose sending more economic and military aid to Israel, and 40% believe that Israel is killing civilians intentionally.

As support for Israel continues to diminish, we can expect further crackdowns and escalating protests. The outcome of these battles will undoubtedly impact the free speech of all Americans, regardless of their connection to Palestine.

Trump’s attacks on the Palestine movement certainly didn’t materialize out of thin air. The groundwork was laid by previous administrations, Republican and Democratic. It was also fueled by right-wing think tanks, like the Heritage Foundation, and pro-Israel organizations, like the Anti-Defamation League.

However, the administration’s immediate focus on Gaza protesters shows us how the war against Palestine quickly spreads elsewhere.