Mahmoud Khalil writes from an ICE detention facility: “The Trump administration is targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent.”
The Trump administration’s extraordinary and unprecedented move to effectively expel South African Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool was done for one reason: South Africa had the audacity to hold Israel accountable for the Gaza genocide.
Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism targets free speech, academic freedom, and civil liberties, with little resistance from Democrats complicit in Israel’s oppression.
Columbia University issued suspensions, expulsions, and temporary degree revocations to students connected to the April 2024 occupation of Hamilton Hall, as ICE agents reportedly arrested a second Palestinian Columbia student on Friday.
Helyeh Doutaghi was placed on leave by Yale Law School after being falsely accused of “terrorism” over her support for Palestine. She says her case reflects the new era of Zionist McCarthyism and that this repression reveals an empire in decline.
The Trump administration’s direct negotiations with Hamas have broken precedent and angered Israel. Envoy Adam Boehler defended them to CNN saying the U.S. is “not an agent of Israel,” but how much daylight exists between the allies?
In a stark escalation in the Trump administration’s campaign against Palestine activism, on Saturday night, ICE agents raided the home of Mahmoud Khalil and detained the activist who had been among the leaders of Gaza protests at Columbia University.
While Israel and the United States are working together on a plan for Gaza, they have slightly different interests. This gap is opening space for regional Arab leaders to propose an alternative vision that avoids full-scale ethnic cleansing.
When Donald Trump proposed turning Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East” by forcefully removing its indigenous Palestinian population, he was not introducing a new idea but following an American tradition as old as Manifest Destiny itself.
As the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire comes to an end it is clear the Trump White House has no substantive policy for the region. Israel is filling that vacuum with perpetual war.