Why I, a Supporter of Israel, Speak Out for Mahmoud Khalil.
I have many deep seated needs that I don’t fully understand. For example, I like to wear brightly colored shoes. This need is visceral and compelling, and completely unrelated to what anyone who understands “fashion” or “social norms” would recommend.
It doesn’t matter if I’m at work, or a funeral, or at a Dull-colored shoe convention. I’m wearing flame-orange loafers with canary yellow trim. The sort of shoes you can’t get at stores, but can only find in the sort of dark alleys where you can also get drugs with names like “bam” and “pow” and “corpse mud”.
Another self-destructive compulsion I have is the need to piss off anyone and everyone who actually agrees with me on a political issue. It’s like I’ll show up at a “Save the Whales” rally full of passion and commitment. Unfortunately my backpack is full of the whale tacos I brought for lunch. (No whales were harmed during the writing of this paragraph).
Allow me to extend my passion for not allowing any person or group to fully approve of me by wading, once again, into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Faithful readers of my columns (I know I’m taking a bit of license by using “readerS” plural) know that I have been a strong supporter of Israel’s right to defend itself against the charmingly homicidal maniacs from Hamas. While I may not have personally approved of every particular military strike, I do think that Israel not only should, but must do all they can to eliminate Hamas as an existential threat to their nation. I also have written about how I consider inflamatory terms such as “genocide” and “apartheid” to be absurd and unhinged. All of this has, to some small extent, made me popular (by which I mean “tolerable”) to other supporters of Israel.
That said, I have also written in favor of a two-state solution and the need to make the lives of non-Hamas Palestinians better. And now, I will endeavor to infuriate some, though not all, of my fellow Zionists by coming to the defense of Mahmoud Khalil.
As most of you have seen, Mr. Khalil was a leader of the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University last year. On March 8, he was arrested by US Customs Agents. The agents said they were acting on orders from the State Department, but Donald Trump said that he personally ordered Khalil’s arrest with the intent to deport him. A Court has temporarily blocked the deportation and Mr. Khalil remains confined.
The thing is that Mr. Khalil is not some undocumented immigrant, or, as Trump might say, some “illegal alien invader….very bad. Probably in one of those vicious Mexican Street Gangs roaming all over Palestine”. Khalil is a legal, permanent resident who has been given a green card and a path to citizenship. As such, he is entitled to the same First Amendment protections as any American.
All of this means that Mr. Khalil may not be deported, or otherwise punished merely for holding or expressing unpopular opinions, even boneheaded ones like “From the River to the Sea!” , whatever that means. And, it is worth noting, that Khalil, unlike many of his fellow protesters, has explicitly condemned anti-semitism and said that peace may only happen through cooperation between the Israeli and Palestinian people.
There is no doubt that some aggressive anti-semitism was on display during the Columbia protests. Jewish students were harassed, threatened, prevented from going to class and even assaulted. This activity goes beyond speech and none of it is protected by the First Amendment. Did Mr. Khalil participate in any of this activity? I don’t know. But I’ve seen the government present no evidence that he did.
And this is the problem. I’m not saying that there are no circumstances under which Khalil could be deported. His Green Card status is not citizenship and if he commits crimes we can legally cease and desist him from our environs.
There are those claiming that he has provided “support for terrorism”. But merely making such an assertion is not enough to remove someone’s legal and constitutional protections.
Providing material support for a terrorist organization is a crime. Has Khalil done this? Again, I don’t know. We’re not friends. We aren’t pen pals. We don’t go to Neil Diamond concerts together. Maybe he did. And if there is evidence, then charge him, convict him, and THEN deport him. I will be on the dock wishing him bon voyage. I’ll even bring the almond cookies. God I love those.
But allowing the government, and particularly a president, and particularly THIS president to just unilaterally decide who should be deported, based exclusively on protected speech being unpopular puts all of us at risk. We all take positions that are, at some point in time, to some people, unpopular. If the powers that temporarily be can evict Mr. Khalil, not because he is a criminal, but because he is an advocate, how can you be sure that you won’t face a similar fate when there is a president who thinks your views are bone-headed?
We have all heard Martin Niemoller’s admonition about how they first came for the socialists, but I did not speak out because I was not a socialist, etc. And when they came for him, there was nobody left to speak out. Well, I am speaking out for Mahmoud Khalil, someone I profoundly disagree with on most things, because I want there to be someone to speak out for me if the time comes when I face legal persecution for my political opinions, which it is increasingly looking like it will.
