Marty Levine
March 16, 2025
We have come to a moment of choice for many in the American Jewish Community. Which is more important for them: their support for Israel or protecting American Democracy?
A week ago the AP broke this story
Federal immigration authorities arrested a Palestinian activist Saturday who played a prominent role in Columbia University’s protests against Israel, a significant escalation in the Trump administration’s pledge to detain and deport student activists.
Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia until this past December, was inside his university-owned apartment Saturday night when several Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents entered and took him into custody, his attorney, Amy Greer, told The Associated Press.
Khalil’s offense was that he had stood up for Palestinian lives and self-determination as the horror of Gaza was unfolding in plain sight and he was challenging Israel. He has become a symbol of the growing attempt to silence such speech and to tie it to the evil of antisemitism.
Here’s how the Trump Administration’s “border czar”, Tom Homan, rationalized the arrest.
{He} called Mahmoud Khalil — the pro-Palestinian activist arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement — “a national security threat,” citing student protests at Columbia University that called for the institution to cut ties with Israel over its war in Gaza.
“When you are on campuses — I hear ‘speech,’ ‘freedom of speech,’ ‘freedom of speech’ — can you stand a movie theater and yell fire? Can you slander? Free speech has limitations,” Homan said during an appearance in Albany, New York.
“Coming to this country either on a visa or becoming a resident alien is a great privilege, but there are rules associated with that. You might have been able to get away with that stuff in the last administration, but not this administration,” Homan said.
This comes from years of effort by major elements of the organized American Jewish Community to counter growing opposition to Israel’s policies and actions. The focus of these efforts has increasingly tried to move the issue from the realm of political debate and frame stifling protest as a way to protect Jews from discrimination, to an issue of religious freedom. These efforts included working to install the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)’s working definition of antisemitism in the laws of this nation and in the policies of private institutions because it equated opposition to Israel and antisemitism. Although there has been much academic and political dispute about the IHRA definition and its use as a tool of political repression, after the October 7, 2023, Hamas break out from Gaza and the atrocities that went with it, these Jewish Communal efforts were amplified.
The 2024 election brought us the second Trump presidency. And the Trump gang has found the perfect way to energize their effort to bring autocracy to America. This is a moment when America’s values of free speech, of equal protection under law and of a government that serves ALL the people are being dismantled before our eyes, piece by piece and day by day. In this moment, the impact of MAGA’s shock and awe approach with which they have attacked the country with since January 20th is beginning to wear off.As groups representing those with much to lose are beginning to mobilize, the Trump government needed a way to try to keep the opposition from coalescing. They needed to find ways to divide those who might oppose them so they can continue on.
America’s Jewish Community has long been an integral and important part of liberal and progressive politics. Just this past Sunday, many of us recognized the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the day when voting rights protestors were brutally beaten as they tried to march across the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama because they wanted Black Americans to vote. It is hard to forget how so many in my community have fond memories of pictures of the revered Rabbi, Abraham Joshua Heschel, alongside Dr. King marching that bridge. And just days later, their voices raised in cries of “freedom”.
This picture has symbolized the commitment of America’s Jewish Community to a vision of America that Trump and his minions seem ready to take down. So, driving a wedge between progressive elements and the Jewish community is, in this moment, a meaningful objective for MAGA to obtain.
MAGA’s focus on the “others” who need to be eliminated from our nation to preserve our cultural purity are embodied in this Palestinian man. After more than a year of efforts to discredit any voices who refused to focus on Hamas and October 7th as the atrocity of atrocities; After more than a year in which being pro-Palestine was equated as hating Jews; After a year in which campus protests were depicted as the height of being un-American and anti-Semitic,a the arrest of Khalil was a fitting way to energize and broaden the anti-immigrant, anti-democracy thrust of Donald Trump’s movement.
Arresting Khalil serves to cement these months of political effort by MAGA.
In quashing free speech and active political protest as this action tries to do, the Trump Administration wished to give themselves even more power to stifle dissent. To do this, they focus on a representative of a population whom they have worked to demonize and hope they can get away with it. This should be a red flag for the Jewish Community whose historical experience should teach them that what happens to one minority will also happen to the Jewish community.
Now these organizations need to choose between two actions: Raising their voices in support of Mahmoud Khalil’’s right to speak and protest freely, even for positions that they disagree with as essential to protecting all of freedoms; or allowing him to fall victim to Trump’s plans as alright because it can be rationalized as necessary to maintain support for Israel.
And as of this date it seems that too many Jewish leaders and the organizations they lead have chosen Israel over America.
Here’s the American Jewish Committee’s statement:
American Jewish Committee (AJC) is appalled by the views and actions of Mahmoud Khalil. Universities have an obligation to ensure that antisemitic behavior such as his does not lead to intimidation and harassment of Jewish students.
U.S. law is clear regarding the necessary predicate that justifies deportation. Under that law, there is a difference between protected speech, even when deplorable, and statements and actions that justify deportation.
And here’s how the ADL responded on their X (nee Twitter) account:
We firmly believe there should be swift and severe consequences for those who provide material support to foreign terrorist organizations, incite violence in support of terrorist activities, or conceal their identities in order to harass and intimidate Jewish individuals and institutions with impunity. We appreciate the Trump Administration’s broad, bold set of efforts to counter campus antisemitism — and this action further illustrates that resolve by holding alleged perpetrators responsible for their actions. Obviously, any deportation action or revocation of a Green Card or visa must be undertaken in alignment with required due process protections. We also hope that this action serves as a deterrent to others who might consider breaking the law on college campuses or anywhere.
And other Jewish voice voices reported by the NY Times:
Rabbi Moshe Hauer, executive vice president of the Orthodox Union, favorably contrasted the arrest in a statement with previous “drawn-out bureaucratic processes” that he said failed to address campus antisemitism. “New, aggressive, and legal tactics are clearly needed,” he said.
Ari Shrage, the co-founder of the Columbia Jewish Alumni Association, said the group’s criticism of campus protests and its praise of Mr. Khalil’s arrest should not be mistaken for a desire to crack down on speech.
Significant Jewish organizations, often those who claim to lead and represent American Jewry, have chosen to stand silent, including the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, the Jewish Federations of North America, AIPAC and even the progressive women’s organization NCJW.
With their words of support for the Trump action and with their silence, they are risking the safety of the American Jewish Community, their fellow Americans and, in the end, Israel itself.
Jonathan Jacoby, the national director of the Nexus Project, a progressive Jewish group, captured what is at stake
There has never been a safer and more flourishing experience than the American Jewish experience, living as a free people in an open society,” he said. “Anything that endangers that, or our relationships with other Americans — those are all Jewish concerns.
Individually, I hope you will add your voice to those saying free Mahmoud Khalil. And if you are a member of an American Jewish organization that has not spoken out to oppose Khalil’s detention and the larger ramifications of Trump’s action, I hope you will reach out to that organization and tell them they are wrong! I hope you will tell them that this is not how we can combat the real threat of antisemitism, that in fact this is how they make it more dangerous for Jews.
