Khalil was detained by the Trump administration and is in the middle of a legal battle over its attempts to deport him
August 6, 2025 14:31
American campus activist Mahmoud Khalil, who has recently been released from an immigration detention centre, has said in a New York Times interview that concern about antisemitism at his university was “manufactured hysteria.”
Speaking on NYT’s Ezra Klein Show, Khalil, who was born in Syria to Palestinian refugees, opened up about his unwavering support for Palestine, saying: "Palestine was taken from us -stolen from us."
When asked about allegations of antisemitism at Columbia University amid last year’s pro-Palestine protests, Khalil said: “I would say there is this manufactured hysteria about antisemitism at Columbia because of the protests.”
Last month, the university settled a $200m lawsuit with the Trump administration over claims that it did not safeguard Jewish students.
Citing certain incidents that he believes evoked the allegations, he continued: “It’s not like antisemitism is happening at Columbia because of the Palestine movement.
“I have a strong belief that antisemitism and anti-Palestinian racism rise together. The incidents rise together because the same groups are perpetrating that in different ways.
“I’m not trying to sanitize history or sanitize the present when it comes to that… I paid so much because of that rhetoric.”
He also defended the use of slogans like ‘globalise the Intifada’ and ‘from the river to the sea’ saying: “From the river to the sea” — from the Palestinian perspective — no one ever said that it’s a violent call.
“Yet you see this narrative that it’s a call to erase Israelis from Palestine — which no one said that.”
Discussing the Hamas atrocities of October 7, Khalil said: "Unfortunately we couldn't avoid such a moment. It was frightening that we had to reach that moment.”
The Israeli government, Khalil said, had been "absolutely ignoring" Palestinians and Israelis were, as far as he believes, becoming "more and more violent" with Palestinians.
According to Khalil, Hamas executed the massacre to "break the cycle" and to make Palestinians "heard". He went on: "To me it was a desperate attempt to [send a message to] the world that Palestinians are here.
"I knew [the massacre was] what Netanyahu wanted because Netanyahu thrives on the killing of Palestinians.
"I knew that was something that Netanyahu would use to ethnically cleanse Palestinians. The intent was clear they wanted to obliterate Gaza."
Israel has long denied allegations of ethnic cleansing in Gaza and insisted that it is not its policy to expel the Palestinian population.
Elsewhere in the interview, Khalil expressed surprise at the number of Jewish students who joined him in protesting for Palestine, saying that, growing up in Syria, "the only Jew you meet is the one trying to kill you".
But Jewish activists "can’t remain silent while a country is committing crimes in their names,” he said.
Discussing Khalil’s legal battle, Klein pressed him on the foreign policy argument used by the Trump administration to attempt to deport him as, according to the government’s case, “fighting antisemitism is a foreign policy priority of the US and you are antisemitic [so] your presence here is in contrast with that priority".
But Khalil insisted that claims of him being antisemitic were baseless, saying: "There isn't any truth to that and its absurd.
"In fact what's a threat to combating antisemitism in this country is this administration and unconditional support for a country that is committing a genocide in the name of the Jewish people.
"[The administration] is trying to conflate antisemitism with anti-Zionism."
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