Detained Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil claimed that fears of antisemitism on the Columbia campus are "manufactured" and accused his opponents of being Nazi collaborators in an incendiary op ed he published in the Columbia Spectator student newspaper.
Khalil, who led the anti-Israel Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) organization on campus, claimed that Columbia "manufactured public hysteria about antisemitism" and "laid the groundwork for my abduction."
Attacking Jewish students outraged by the threats and intimidation they experienced following the October 7 massacre, he stated, “In a cruel irony, the students who publicize manufactured safety concerns regarding antisemitism are the same ones who repeatedly show up at your events looking for provocation, leaving only disappointed."
“I can’t help but think that if I were in Palestine, some of these students would be the ones stopping me at checkpoints, raiding my university, piloting the drones surveilling my community, or killing my neighbors in their homes,” he said.
Comparing Columbia to French Nazi collaborators, he asked, “Who can still pretend this is an educational institution and not the 'Vichy on the Hudson?'"
Khalil was arrested by ICE on March 8 and faces deportation from the US for allegedly lying on his visa application and for spreading flyers containing Hamas propaganda in his role at CUAD.
In October 2024, one year after the October 7 massacre, CUAD published an explicit endorsement of violence.
“We support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance,” the CUAD statement said. “In the face of violence from the oppressor equipped with the most lethal military force on the planet, where you’ve exhausted all peaceful means of resolution, violence is the only path forward.”
In the same statement, CUAD withdrew an apology for a Columbia student who expressed a desire to engage in "murder Zionists."
The student, Khymani James, said during a video posted in January 2024, “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.”
In October, CUAD stated that the apology for this violent rhetoric “does not represent Khymani or CUAD’s values or political lines."
CUAD is an alliance of student organizations led by Columbia’s chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and the anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Peace. Both groups were suspended from campus in late 2023 for violating Columbia’s protest policies, but have continued to operate via CUAD. Columbia JVP also posted the Tuesday statement on its Instagram page.
CUAD is one of multiple student groups in the city that have used violent language in their protest of the Israel-Hamas war. In August 2024, weeks ahead of the beginning of the current school year, CUAD hailed the Oct. 7 attack and posted, “We are Westerners fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization.”
Despite Khalil's insistence that fears of antisemitism at Columbia are "manufactured," there have been numerous instances of explicit antisemitism, calls for violence, and actual violence.
During the protests of Spring 2024, anti-Israel protesters called for "10,000" October 7s and for massacres like the October 7 massacre to be committed "every day." Signs were displayed calling Jewish students Hamas's "next targets."
"Remember the 7th of October!" one protester yelled. "That will happen not one more time, not five more times, not 10 more times, not 100 more times, not 1000 more times, but 10,000 times!"
"Never forget the 7th of October," said another protestor. "Are you ready? 7th of October is about to be every day. Every day. 7th of October is going to be every day for you."
Protesters also held signs pointing at Jewish students, calling them "Al-Qassam's next targets" in reference to the military wing of the Hamas terrorist organization.
In April 2024, anti-Israel protesters violently occupied Columbia's Hamilton Hall and held two workers against their will.
In one incident, an anti-Israel protester hit a counter-protester in the face with a rock.
In February of this year, anti-Israel protesters stormed an Israeli professor's class