Is Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil "pro-Hamas"? And did he make other students feel "unsafe"?
I don't care, and neither should you. If you believe in free speech, Khalil's opinions — and how other people reacted to them — shouldn't matter.
Alas, that's a lesson his defenders have been slow to learn. By denying that Khalil favors Hamas, they imply that it might be okay to banish him from the U.S. if he did praise it. That plays into the hands of President Trump, who has vowed to deport "Hamas sympathizers" or cancel their student visas.
Let's be clear: Hamas is a foreign terrorist organization. That means it's illegal to provide it with material support, including money and weapons. But it's not illegal to like Hamas. In America, we don't penalize people for their ideas.
Yet that's exactly what's happening. Over 300 foreign students have had their visas revoked in the past three weeks for participating in anti-Israel protests or for making allegedly pro-Hamas statements. And more than a half dozen people connected to universities have been taken into custody — or deported — for the same reasons.
They include Khalil, who was arrested on March 8 and sent to a detention facility in Louisiana. According to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, Khalil circulated "pro-Hamas propaganda flyers." He also "disrupted college campus classes" and made Jewish students "feel unsafe on their own college campus," Leavitt said.
The White House provided copies of the flyers, which include an image of a boot stepping on a Star of David. "Crush Zionism," the caption declares.
The administration provided no details linking Mahmoud Khalil to the flyers. And according to his wife, who is eight months pregnant with their child, Khalil has never backed Hamas.
"I think it's ridiculous. It's disgusting," Noor Abdalla told a television interviewer. "That's the tactic that they're using to make him look like the person that he's not, literally."
I don't have any reason to doubt what she says about her husband's views. But as her interview went viral, I did question whether we should be discussing those views at all.
Remember, the Trump administration is trying to justify Khalil's arrest under a Cold War-era statute allowing the secretary of State to deport any legal resident whose "presence or activities ... would have ...
