Perhaps you’ve heard of the “Palestine Exception,” the idea that all sorts of behaviors and speech that are acceptable in other contexts are denied and punished when it comes to advocacy around Palestine. But what if the treatment of Palestinians wasn’t an exception but a stress test? A test of our tolerance as a nation and as a people, for cruelty and the consolidation of authoritarian rule. Authoritarians name an enemy, declare an emergency, and, on that pretext, invoke extraordinary, often military, powers to shock and intimidate credible sources of opposition and dissent, including politicians, the law, the media, the academy, free speech, and even the truth itself.
Mahmoud Khalil has seen every one of those steps up close. A negotiator for the pro-Palestine student protests on Columbia University’s campus in 2024, Khalil was arrested without a warrant by unidentified men in March. He was one of the first and most visible abductions after the second Trump administration took office. Khalil, a legal permanent resident who had committed no violence and broken no law, was taken from his pregnant wife and transported 1,500 miles to a Louisiana detention camp without access to a lawyer or any means of defense.
The Trump administration sought to expel Khalil not for his acts, but for his “beliefs, statements, and associations,” which Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote in a short letter would “compromise a compelling US foreign policy interest.” About 100 days later and after Khalil had missed the birth of his son, Deen, a New Jersey federal judge rejected Rubio’s case and ordered Khalil’s release. But this September, the administration came back citing errors on his green-card application and ordered that Khalil be deported, possibly to Algeria or Syria, where his life would be under threat. He has until the end of October to appeal. In the meantime, Khalil is suing the Trump administration for $20 million in damages, alleging that he was falsely imprisoned, maliciously prosecuted, and smeared as an antisemite. Khalil has said he will continue advocating for Palestinians as his legal battle plays out, and that is exactly what he is doing.
Laura Flanders: How did you get connected with the movement that you became a negotiator for there on the Columbia University campus?
Mahmoud Khalil: Being a Palestinian already connected to the movement of liberation of your people—I was one of the very few Palestinian students on campus, especially those coming directly from a refugee camp or from Palestine. Since I left Syria, I had this sense of humanity, in terms of like: I want to find justice; I want to seek justice and dignity. I started working with Syrians and Palestinians, Syrian refugees in Lebanon and across the region and then I came here and continued to do that.
LF: March 8 is International Women’s Day for some, but for others, the day on which you were, there’s no other word for it, abducted. What happened?
MK: Following my involvement in the encampment in April 2024, there was a concerted effort to dox me and smear me online by many shady groups and also by Zionist actors at Columbia University. But I did not care about that, because these smear campaigns were designed to intimidate you so you don’t speak. However, when Trump came into power, these threats became institutionalized. This anti-Palestinian sentiment has become institutionalized in a way that the federal government was depending on these shady groups to get information and to target pro-Palestine advocacy.
Yet I was, to be honest, confident nothing would happen to me. I never did anything wrong. I literally was protesting a genocide. I was in my university protesting against the use of my tuition dollars to be invested in Israel. So there’s nothing wrong about that. And then March 8 comes, I was on my way back from an Iftar dinner with my wife, and it was a Saturday night. We’re looking forward to just go home, have a cup of tea. Noor was eight months pregnant. I was followed by plain-clothed agents, and unmarked cars come and just telling me like, “You need to come with us.” I ask, because here you think you have rights, “Oh, first, can I see your ID?” And second, “Do you have an arrest warrant?” And they declined to show me these. At first they said, “Your visa has been revoked.” I was like, “I don’t have a visa. I’m a permanent resident in this country.” I can see them like shocked that I told them that I’m a permanent resident. The last thing I heard while being arrested was them threatening Noor, my wife, of arrest if she doesn’t leave me. When I was being booked, the last thing I heard that the White House is requesting an update.
LF: Were you in shackles at that time? Did I get that right?
MK: Yes, I was in shackles, basically during these like first 30 hours, most of the time when being transported from one place to another.
LF: And any call to a lawyer, any call to anybody?
MK: Nothing. Despite my repeated request to call a lawyer, to call my wife, which is like the bare minimum. I studied public administration and public policy, so I understand the law to a good degree at least. They refused to do any of that as if they are acting extrajudicially. And I felt it. I felt that maybe I’m being kidnapped. I felt like really that what’s happening to me was like, maybe I would be killed now. Like I don’t know where I am.
LF: You fled Syria for fear of exactly this kind of treatment.
MK: Exactly, exactly.
LF: And came to the US expecting different and better. Now it took a little while, but eventually Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, releases a short letter claiming that your beliefs, opinions, and associations pose some kind of threat.
MK: He said something there that’s really alarming. He said that my beliefs, activities, associations were otherwise lawful. He concedes that these are lawful acts. These are lawful associations. In the same letter, he concedes that what I’m doing is lawful, he writes that despite that, “I want to deport you because I see this as a foreign policy threat and compelling national security threat,” which is absurd. Rightly, a federal judge ruled that there will be determination, or this letter in specific was unconstitutional.
The government is appealing that now in the appellate court. I think the government realized that they can’t win on that case. Now they have fabricated a whole new case that I made some willful misrepresentation on my green-card application. And it’s utterly disgusting that they are resorting to such fascist tactics, like literally fabricating a whole case. I wasn’t even asked about these allegations in my court hearing, in my immigration court hearing. Immigration courts are not actual courts, are not Article III courts or independent, I would say. They belong or they report to the executive branch. They report to the Department of Justice and the attorney general. So the immigration judge in that case basically did not look at the case, and they just wanted to find me deportable. We’re challenging that because it’s clear it is in retaliation of my First Amendment rights in this country.
LF: In the meantime, we’ve seen other people abducted, we’ve also seen the language ratchet up in this country. Most recently, deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller described the Democratic Party as not a party but a domestic extremist group. Do you this so-called exception is actually a test of our acceptance of authoritarian or fascist rule holds?
MK: The administration was not trying to hide any of that. They said that my case would be used as a blueprint, as a test case to go after everyone who, they don’t like their speech. And this is happening now. This has been happening to Palestinians and to pro-Palestine speech in this country for a number of years. And as you said rightly, this government thrives on division. This is why the Trump administration are using Palestine, the pretext of antisemitism and combating antisemitism, to go after us because they know that this is the weakness of the Democratic Party. When they go to the universities, they start with combating antisemitism, but then the second ask would be to abolish all DEI programs to sanitize the history on slavery and the inception of America. The list goes on and on and on.
LF: I’d like to hear what you’ve learned about how we could combat some of this weakness, come together over issues that make a lot of people uncomfortable.
MK: Unity is the approach, and unity in a way that’s a rights-based approach. The right of people to live equally in freedom and dignity. A lot of people got so used to Trump, and they would say, “Oh, that’s just like Trump. You know, that’s just another thing Trump is doing.” But I think people mistakenly think that what’s happening is far from their doors. They think that this would never happen to them, whether, because of their social status, because of their ethnicity, or on any of that. But what’s happening around us should alarm us, it’s in our house. It’s not about that the US is becoming authoritarian. It is authoritarianism now. Like I lived under Assad regime. I know how that feels. I can sense the same attitudes around me.
LF: That hasn’t stopped you fighting back. You have brought a civil lawsuit. What’s the status of that?
MK: We’ll file the federal case very soon to take the administration to the federal court. This is about accountability, because to me, silence is not an option. I know if I’m silent, that wouldn’t really vindicate me or wouldn’t make my case any better. They would still come after me and anyone else. The moral cost of remaining silent is much higher than any of these costs that may happen to me. I go frequently to Congress to lobby and advocate not only for my case, it’s for the stop of the war but also for raising the alarm about what’s happening around us.
LF: There are some heroic resisters, especially among young people who would be subject to serve in the so-called Israel Defense Forces. Increasingly, we’re hearing their voices, they’re speaking up. There are some others inside Israel who see in their own leader a similar kind of fascist authoritarian who has his own self-interested reasons to stay in power and is as unresponsive to any sanction by international law. What’s your message to those people inside Israel?
MK: There’s absolutely no excuse to serve in an army that’s committing a genocide. So I absolutely applaud those who are resisting being part of such a genocidal army, a genocidal state. As I said it before, our liberation is mutual. Our liberation is intertwined. You can never achieve Israel security without giving the Palestinians their full rights and vice versa. So this is why I believe in our collective liberation. And my liberation shouldn’t come at the expense of anyone’s liberation. And vice versa. Zionism could be a noble ideology of creating a home for the Jewish people, but when that comes at the expense of my people, here’s the problem. So similarly, I want to be able to realize my self-determination, respect others self-determination and live in dignity, freedom, and justice, prosperity.