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      US seeks to deport Indian academic over political views and Palestinian wife, lawyers say

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      An Indian academic at Georgetown University, whose lawyers say was arrested as punishment for his wife’s Palestinian heritage and opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza, has filed an emergency court request to prevent deportation.Department of Homeland Security agents on Monday detained Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow at the university’s Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, saying that his visa was revoked. Suri’s attorney said that he was arrested on the same spurious legal grounds as Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil, according to Politico.Suri was arrested after returning home from a traditional Ramadan meal and detained by masked federal agents, his legal team said. He has since been transported to several immigration detention facilities and is now at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement “staging center” in Louisiana “potentially awaiting deportation”, the ACLU of Virginia said. His attorneys are requesting his immediate return to Virginia and release while his immigration case is being considered.Detainees may only be held at this particular facility for 72 hours, his lawyers contend. “The facility also does not permit access to visitors or even legal counsel,” court papers in support of the emergency petition say.“Ripping someone from their home and family, stripping them of their immigration status, and detaining them solely based on political viewpoint is a clear attempt by President Trump to silence dissent,” Sophia Gregg, a senior immigrants’ rights attorney at the ACLU of Virginia, said in a statement. “That is patently unconstitutional.”Suri on Tuesday filed a legal petition for release; in court papers first reported by Politico, his attorney said that he did not have a criminal record, nor had he been charged with any crime.The Department of Homeland Security alleged that Suri had ties to the Palestinian militant group Hamas and claimed he shared its propaganda and antisemitic content on social media, officials said in a statement to Fox News. This statement, which did not include any evidence, said that the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, found that his activities “rendered him deportable”.One of Suri’s attorneys, Hassan Ahmad, said he had not been able to reach him since the arrest outside his Arlington, Virginia, home. “We’re trying to speak with him. That hasn’t happened yet,” Ahmad told Politico. “This is just another example of our government abducting people the same way they abducted Khalil.”Suri, who was teaching a course this spring on “majoritarianism and minority rights in south Asia”, holds a doctorate in peace and conflict studies from a university in India, according to Reuters. His wife, Mapheze Saleh, a US citizen, is the daughter of Ahmed Yousef, a former political adviser to Hamas.For at least one month before Suri’s arrest, various hardline pro-Israel social media accounts, as well as Israel’s US embassy, highlighted his wife and father-in-law in posts on X. One 13 March missive, which showed a photo purporting to be Saleh and another photo of her and her father, tagged the US attorney general, Pam Bondi. Court papers say that such groups publicized the home address of the couple, who have three children.“Dr Suri’s experience is shocking and disgraceful,” Ahmad said in a a statement. “It should worry everyone that masked government agents can disappear someone from their home and family because the current administration dislikes their opinion.”According to a 2018 article about Suri and Saleh in the Hindustan Times, Saleh is the daughter of Ahmed Yousef, a former political adviser to Hamas.Suri’s arrest came amid Donald Trump’s efforts to expel foreign nationals who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations against Israel’s war in Gaza following the October 2023 Hamas attack. Civil liberties groups have decried Trump’s actions as assaults on free speech and illegal targeting of political opponents.View image in fullscreenKhalil, a Palestinian Columbia graduate and green card holder, faces deportation under a provision of immigration law that permits the US secretary of state to expel non-citizens if their presence in the country is deemed a threat to foreign policy. A Manhattan federal court judge ordered that Khalil remain in the US while his immigration case is pending and has transferred the proceedings to New Jersey.Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, confirmed in a social media post that Rubio deemed Suri’s presence a threat to US foreign policy interests.“Suri was a foreign exchange student at Georgetown University actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media. Suri has close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas,” McLaughlin said in a post on X. “The Secretary of State issued a determination on March 15, 2025 that Suri’s activities and presence in the United States rendered him deportable under INA section 237(a)(4)(C)(i).”A spokesperson for Georgetown said the university did not know of any alleged wrongdoing on Suri’s part and that it supported students’ and professors’ right to free expression. “Dr Khan Suri is an Indian national who was duly granted a visa to enter the United States to continue his doctoral research on peacebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan. We are not aware of him engaging in any illegal activity, and we have not received a reason for his detention,” the university said. “We support our community members’ rights to free and open inquiry, deliberation and debate, even if the underlying ideas may be difficult, controversial or objectionable. We expect the legal system to adjudicate this case fairly.”Trump has repeatedly characterized pro-Palestinian protesters as antisemitic. Those advocating for Palestine, among them some Jewish groups, contend that their criticism of Israel’s military efforts in Gaza and support for Palestinian rights has wrongly been cast as antisemitism by critics.Reuters contributed reporting More

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      Mahmoud Khalil and Trump’s assault on free speech – podcast

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      This month Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia University graduate who had worked with human rights groups and even the UK government, was detained in New York. His wife, who is eight months pregnant, said her husband was not told why he was being detained and that officers assumed he was on a visa – but actually he has a green card, allowing him to stay in the US and protecting his constitutional rights.Khalil says his detention is part of a crackdown on dissent – and to deter others from protesting. During pro-Palestine protests on the Columbia campus last year he acted as a mediator between the university and the demonstrators, and, unlike many students, left his face uncovered. Then Donald Trump was elected US president and promised to clamp down on student protests.Prof Joseph Howley, who knows Khalil, says he is “conspicuously committed to non-violent resolution of conflict, conspicuously committed to an inclusive vision of liberation and peace”. He tells Michael Safi why the implications of the government’s efforts to detain and deport Khalil are “incredibly chilling”.Chris McGreal, who writes for Guardian US, explains the background to the case and whether free speech and the right to protest are safe in Trump’s America. More

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      I am a Palestinian political prisoner in Louisiana. I am being targeted for my activism | Mahmoud Khalil

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      My name is Mahmoud Khalil and I am a political prisoner. I am writing to you from a detention facility in Louisiana where I wake to cold mornings and spend long days bearing witness to the quiet injustices under way against a great many people precluded from the protections of the law.Who has the right to have rights? It is certainly not the humans crowded into the cells here. It isn’t the Senegalese man I met who has been deprived of his liberty for a year, his legal situation in limbo and his family an ocean away. It isn’t the 21-year-old detainee I met who stepped foot in this country at age nine, only to be deported without so much as a hearing.Justice escapes the contours of this nation’s immigration facilities.On March 8, I was taken by DHS [the Department of Homeland Security] agents who refused to provide a warrant, and accosted my wife and me as we returned from dinner. By now, the footage of that night has been made public. Before I knew what was happening, agents handcuffed and forced me into an unmarked car. At that moment, my only concern was for Noor’s safety. I had no idea if she would be taken too, since the agents had threatened to arrest her for not leaving my side. DHS would not tell me anything for hours – I did not know the cause of my arrest or if I was facing immediate deportation. At 26 Federal Plaza, I slept on the cold floor. In the early morning hours, agents transported me to another facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. There, I slept on the ground and was refused a blanket despite my request.My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza, which resumed in full force Monday night. With January’s ceasefire now broken, parents in Gaza are once again cradling too-small shrouds, and families are forced to weigh starvation and displacement against bombs. It is our moral imperative to persist in the struggle for their complete freedom.I was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria to a family which has been displaced from their land since the 1948 Nakba. I spent my youth in proximity to yet distant from my homeland. But being Palestinian is an experience that transcends borders. I see in my circumstances similarities to Israel’s use of administrative detention – imprisonment without trial or charge – to strip Palestinians of their rights. I think of our friend Omar Khatib, who was incarcerated without charge or trial by Israel as he returned home from travel. I think of Gaza hospital director and pediatrician Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, who was taken captive by the Israeli military on December 27 and remains in an Israeli torture camp today. For Palestinians, imprisonment without due process is commonplace.I have always believed that my duty is not only to liberate myself from the oppressor, but also to liberate my oppressors from their hatred and fear. My unjust detention is indicative of the anti-Palestinian racism that both the Biden and Trump administrations have demonstrated over the past 16 months as the US has continued to supply Israel with weapons to kill Palestinians and prevented international intervention. For decades, anti-Palestinian racism has driven efforts to expand US laws and practices that are used to violently repress Palestinians, Arab Americans, and other communities. That is precisely why I am being targeted.While I await legal decisions that hold the futures of my wife and child in the balance, those who enabled my targeting remain comfortably at Columbia University. Presidents [Minouche] Shafik, [Katrina] Armstrong, and Dean [Keren] Yarhi-Milo laid the groundwork for the US government to target me by arbitrarily disciplining pro-Palestinian students and allowing viral doxing campaigns – based on racism and disinformation – to go unchecked.Columbia targeted me for my activism, creating a new authoritarian disciplinary office to bypass due process and silence students criticizing Israel. Columbia surrendered to federal pressure by disclosing student records to Congress and yielding to the Trump administration’s latest threats. My arrest, the expulsion or suspension of at least 22 Columbia students – some stripped of their BA degrees just weeks before graduation – and the expulsion of SWC [Student Workers of Columbia] President Grant Miner on the eve of contract negotiations, are clear examples.If anything, my detention is a testament to the strength of the student movement in shifting public opinion toward Palestinian liberation. Students have long been at the forefront of change – leading the charge against the Vietnam war, standing on the frontlines of the civil rights movement, and driving the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Today, too, even if the public has yet to fully grasp it, it is students who steer us toward truth and justice.The Trump administration is targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent. Visa holders, green-card carriers, and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs. In the weeks ahead, students, advocates, and elected officials must unite to defend the right to protest for Palestine. At stake are not just our voices, but the fundamental civil liberties of all.Knowing fully that this moment transcends my individual circumstances, I hope nonetheless to be free to witness the birth of my first-born child.

      This statement was originally published here More

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      The Guardian view on Israel breaking the ceasefire: destroying hope along with lives | Editorial

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      In shattering the two-month ceasefire that had brought a fragile peace and relief to Gaza, Israel has also smashed the faint hopes that a resolution might just remain within reach. This was one of the deadliest days since the early months of the conflict, sparked by the lethal Hamas raid of 7 October 2023. Israel says it was attacking “terror targets”, but health authorities in Gaza say that 174 children and 89 women were among the more than 400 dead. Evacuation orders issued by the military suggest that a renewed ground offensive may be on its way for traumatised and repeatedly displaced Palestinians. Benjamin Netanyahu warned that it was “only the beginning” and the military issued new evacuation orders to traumatised and repeatedly displaced Palestinians. Families of the remaining Israeli hostages are terrified and angry too, attacking the government for choosing to give up on them.Horror is piling upon horror. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed since the war began, and the numbers grew even during the ceasefire, many due to Israel’s blocking of aid. The British foreign secretary, David Lammy, belatedly acknowledged that as a breach of international law on Monday – only for the prime minister’s spokesperson to rebuke him. A UN report last week said that Israel’s attacks on women’s healthcare in Gaza amounted to “genocidal acts”, and that security forces had used sexual violence as a weapon of war to “dominate and destroy the Palestinian people”. A previous UN commission found that “relentless and deliberate attacks” on medical personnel and facilities amounted to war crimes.Building on the ceasefire always looked difficult. Negotiations never seriously began for the second phase that was supposed to bring about a permanent cessation of hostilities, the release of all hostages, and the total withdrawal of Israeli forces – never mind consideration of the hypothetical third phase, Gaza’s reconstruction.Mr Netanyahu, who blames Hamas’s intransigence in refusing to release all the hostages now for the end of the ceasefire, is kept in power by endless conflict. The Israeli prime minister was due to testify in his corruption trial on Tuesday but cancelled, citing the renewed offensive. He needs support to pass a budget by the end of the month or his government will be dissolved. Resuming air strikes has brought back one of his far-right coalition partners, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and should prevent the other, Bezalel Smotrich, from jumping ship. Israelis challenging, as authoritarian, his attempts to dismiss his internal security agency chief, Ronen Bar, can be accused of undermining the patriotic cause. Yet most Israelis wanted to move to the second phase of the ceasefire, according to a recent survey. The testimony of returned hostages has refocused attention on the plight of those still held.The renewed attack has been widely and rightly condemned in Europe and the Arab world. But Israel, which was undeterred by Joe Biden’s feeble scoldings, is now dealing with a US president who told it to pause for a beat but is happy to give it the green light to resume and urge it to go further. Donald Trump has repeatedly promoted the forced displacement of Palestinians – another war crime. The US and Israel have reportedly contacted officials in Sudan, Somalia and Somaliland about resettling uprooted Palestinians. These plans are no more tolerable for being far-fetched. The Arab peace plan was a clear statement that there is a better alternative. But for Israel’s right, which will not tolerate Palestinian aspirations to statehood, the destruction of hope is not merely a result of this war, but the goal. It must not succeed.

      Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. More

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      Netanyahu will never accept peace. Where will his perpetual war lead next? | Simon Tisdall

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      The first and last rule of Benjamin Netanyahu’s doctrine of perpetual warfare is brutally to the point: peace cannot and must not be allowed to last. As indiscriminate, deadly fire once again descends upon the defenceless people of Gaza, unleashed on the orders of Israel’s bellicose prime minister, an anguished cry is heard. Is the precious two-month-long ceasefire with Hamas definitively over? To which comes the dismaying answer: it barely matters. This truce, now shattering into a million pieces, was but a brief, deceptive pause in a war that never stops.It doesn’t stop because Netanyahu is sustained in office by the unceasing state of national emergency that he and his supporters have nurtured and prolonged since the 7 October 2023 terrorist attacks. The war doesn’t stop because Netanyahu’s overarching aim – the destruction of Palestinian hopes of nationhood – is doomed to fail. It does not stop because those, inside Israel and abroad, who criticise Israeli government actions face being dismissed and abused for supposedly acting not in good faith and out of alarm at the human toll, but from antisemitic motives.Most of all, perhaps, the war that the terrorists triggered 18 months ago continues, and threatens once more to expand, because Netanyahu and his far-right Jewish nationalist and ultra-religious partners have found in it a vehicle to pursue the larger goal of a greater Israel. They and their violent settler allies use it as an excuse to expand land grabs and intimidate Palestinian residents in the occupied West Bank. New areas of Syria’s Golan Heights have been seized. Resettlement of Gaza itself is another stated objective.Perpetual warfare can only be sustained if the other “side” continues to fight. So degraded are Hamas’s forces, it almost seems unable to do so any longer. The lack of an immediate armed response to the Israeli strikes that began on Monday night speaks to relative weakness. And yet Hamas is not vanquished. Each time a hostage was handed over, its black-hooded fighters made a great show of militant defiance. As long as any credible, agreed “day after” plan is lacking – and absent a ground invasion and full-scale, long-term occupation – Hamas will remain in effective charge in Gaza. And so the war goes on.Netanyahu did not want the ceasefire in the first place and has constantly sought a breakdown he could blame on others. He only consented to stop shooting on 19 January under pressure from Donald Trump and his ubiquitous envoy, Steve Witkoff. Due to be inaugurated the following day, Trump was imperiously demanding an end to the conflict his predecessor, Joe Biden, failed to halt. Loth to rain on Trump’s parade, and eager to win favour, Netanyahu agreed, fingers crossed tightly behind his back.Yet even then, with more than 48,000 Palestinians dead, tens of thousands injured or traumatised and most of Gaza’s 2 million population homeless, Netanyahu was not ready to stop. He knew that far-right cabinet ministers would not tolerate peace for long. One, Itamar Ben-Gvir, had already resigned in protest. Others were threatening to do so, thereby potentially collapsing his government. He knew, though for him this has been a secondary consideration throughout, that many Israeli hostages remained in captivity – 59 at the last count, alive and dead.Netanyahu never seriously intended to honour the second phase of the ceasefire, which was supposed to begin on 1 March and which calls for full Israeli military withdrawal. He blocked humanitarian aid; he cut water and electricity supplies; he delayed second-phase implementation and obstructed talks to get it back on track. He waged war by other means. And when these provocations failed, he insisted, in breach of the ceasefire deal, that Hamas unilaterally liberate more hostages while offering only limited prisoner releases and a temporary truce extension in return.Perpetual warfare, even when undeclared, is difficult to justify and Netanyahu, indicted for war crimes by the international criminal court and widely condemned in Europe and the Arab world, is desperately short of backers. His predicament has worsened of late. Accused of a growing authoritarianism, he is embroiled in a row over his bid to sack the Shin Bet chief, Ronen Bar. A new corruption scandal involving Qatari money also swirls around him. In this context, a Gaza “distraction” may be considered timely.“Netanyahu is waging a holding action on every possible front – against early elections, against a state commission of inquiry [into the 7 October attacks], against a deal that would bring back the 59 remaining hostages, living and dead,” wrote Haaretz’s Amos Harel. “The prime minister is acting like someone who has nothing left to lose. Intensifying the battle to the point of chaos serves him.”With more than 400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, killed so far, and with Israel threatening continuing and expanding strikes, cries of anger, horror and dismay from the Palestinians, the UN, international aid agencies and foreign governments echo like ghostly laments across the devastated Gazan wasteland. They are as familiar as they are futile and disregarded.A far from chastened White House, proudly confirming complicity in the Israeli strikes, appears keen they continue. The January ceasefire process appears dead. Trump’s absurd plan for a Gaza Riviera is nowhere to be seen or heard now. Thwarted, he hits back vicariously, egging on Netanyahu. Yet it would be naive not to see a broader, schematic Trump connection. In recent days, he has rattled sabres in Iran’s face, demanding Tehran resume talks on curtailing its nuclear programme or face military action. At the same time, he launched huge airstrikes on Iran’s Houthi allies in Yemen.In Trump’s simplistic, zero-sum world, it’s all the same deal. “As President Trump has made clear, Hamas, the Houthis, Iran – all those who seek to terrorise not just Israel but the US – will see a price to pay, and all hell will break loose,” the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said. Is Yemen an early warning? Is Trump moving to defend Israel against Iranian attack – a possibility relentlessly rehearsed by Netanyahu to justify his unending state of war? Or is Trump actually preparing the ground for an Israeli-US strike going the other way, as many in Tehran believe?Like some previous US presidents, and oblivious as ever to history, Trump believes he can remake the Middle East almost by an act of imperial will. But unlike Barack Obama, who dreamed in Cairo in 2009 of a democratic renaissance, Trump is remodelling by diktat, backed by the use or threat of brute force. Palestine is the benighted place in which Trump’s messiah complex and Netanyahu’s doctrine of perpetual war collide. Where next? And who now will help those who cannot help themselves?

      Simon Tisdall is the Observer’s foreign affairs commentator More

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      US rebuts Hamas’s ‘entirely impractical’ ceasefire demands

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      The Trump administration has accused Hamas of making “entirely impractical” demands and stalling on a deal to release a US-Israeli hostage in exchange for an extension of the Gaza ceasefire.“Hamas is making a very bad bet that time is on its side. It is not,” the office of Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and the US national security council said in a statement. “Hamas is well aware of the deadline, and should know that we will respond accordingly if that deadline passes,” it said, adding that Trump had already vowed Hamas would “pay a severe price” for not freeing hostages.A week ago Trump repeated a threat to destroy Hamas in a “last warning” to release the hostages, but it is unclear exactly to which of several potential deadlines the new statement referred.The US appears to have brushed aside an offer made earlier on Friday by the militant Islamist organisation to free Edan Alexander, an Israeli-American hostage who was abducted while serving as a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces during Hamas’s surprise raid into Israel in October 2023, and the remains of four other Israeli-Americans who have died in captivity in Gaza.“Unfortunately, Hamas has chosen to respond by publicly claiming flexibility while privately making demands that are entirely impractical without a permanent ceasefire,” the statement added.The reaction from the US dashed any hopes of sudden progress in continuing indirect negotiations in Qatar over the fragile ceasefire in Gaza but will comes as a relief to the Israeli government.The initial phase of the ceasefire in the devastated territory came into effect in January but lapsed almost two weeks ago. In recent statements, Hamas has said it wants Israel to implement the second phase of the ceasefire, which was supposed to definitively end the conflict.Israel has so far refused to move to the second phase, and is calling for an extension of several weeks to the first phase instead, leaving open the possibility of a new offensive in the months to come.Witkoff has presented a “bridge” proposal in Qatar to extend the first phase of the truce to mid-April if Hamas releases living hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.“Hamas was told in no uncertain terms that this ‘bridge’ would have to be implemented soon – and that dual US-Israeli citizen Edan Alexander would have to be released immediately,” the statement said.After the Hamas statement, Netanyahu’s office said Israel had “accepted the Witkoff outline and showed flexibility”, but said “Hamas is refusing and will not budge from its positions”.“At the same time, it continues to use manipulation and psychological warfare – the reports about Hamas’s willingness to release American hostages are intended to sabotage the negotiations,” the prime minister’s office said.It added that Netanyahu would convene his ministerial team on Saturday night to receive a detailed report from the negotiation team and “decide on the next steps for the release of hostages”.Netanyahu has consistently opposed any permanent end to the war in Gaza, in part due to domestic political considerations. However, the Israeli leader has made it clear that maintaining good relations with the White House is a priority.After more than 16 months of indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas brokered by the US, Qatar and Egypt, Washington recently opened a direct channel of talks with Hamas with the aim of freeing US citizens abducted by the organisation during its raid into Israel.Hamas abducted 251 hostages during its attack and killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians.In a social media post earlier this month, Donald Trump said there would be “hell to pay” if all the 58 hostages still in Gaza were not released. Fewer than half are thought to be still alive.In an attempt to pressure Hamas, Israel has cut off all supplies of goods to Gaza and on Sunday stopped any remaining electricity supplies from Israel to the territory.Almost the entire population of Gaza was displaced by Israel’s military offensive, which killed 48,500 people, mostly civilians, and reduced swaths of the territory to rubble.The six-week first phase of the ceasefire led to the exchange of 25 living Israeli hostages and the remains of eight others, in return for the release of about 1,800 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. It also allowed much-needed food, shelter and medical assistance to re-enter Gaza.Official reaction from the Israeli government to the news last week of direct talks between the US and Hamas was limited to a single terse statement by the office of Netanyahu acknowledging the negotiations, but the mass-market newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth said Israel had been “stunned to discover that, behind its back, Trump’s envoy had flirted for weeks in Doha” with a senior Hamas official. More

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      There can be no ‘Israel exception’ for free speech | Kenneth Roth

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      The Trump administration’s threatened deportation of Mahmoud Khalil seems to reflect a dangerous disregard for freedom of expression – a blatant example of official censorship to curb criticism of Israel.Khalil was a recent graduate of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. He holds a green card, giving him permanent residence status, and is married to a US citizen. They are expecting their first child soon. Immigration agents arrested him last week in his university housing and sent him for detention from New York City to Louisiana. He had been a leader of protests against Israeli war crimes in Gaza.Beyond that, the facts are contested. His friends called him “kind, expressive and gentle”. A Columbia professor described him as “someone who seeks mediated resolutions through speech and dialogue. This is not someone who engages in violence, or gets people riled up to do dangerous things.”But Donald Trump, hailing his arrest, suggested Khalil was among students “who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity”. The administration has presented no facts to back up these assertions, but even were it to do so, the suggestion that permissible speech can be a basis for deportation is deeply troubling. Trump vowed more such deportation efforts.Ordinarily, the first amendment protects even offensive speech. Although the government retains greater latitude to deport non-citizens, Trump’s rhetoric suggests an intention to step way over the line of propriety. What does it mean to be “anti-American”? As we saw during the McCarthy era, people can face that accusation for a wide range of legitimate political views. Such campaigns are the antithesis of the free debate that is essential for US democracy.As for the charge of “antisemitism”, Trump seems to be fueling a disturbing tendency to use claims of antisemitism to silence criticism of the Israeli government. Antisemitism is a serious problem that threatens Jews around the world. But if people see accusations of antisemitism as mere efforts to censor critics of Israel, it would cheapen the concept at a time when the defense against real antisemitism is urgently needed.Even Trump’s unsupported suggestion that Khalil is “pro-terrorist” needs unpacking. To begin with, opposing Israel’s indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on Palestinian civilians, as well as its starvation of them, does not make anyone pro-terrorist. Israel is required to carry out its military response to Hamas’s appalling murders and abductions of 7 October 2023 in accordance with international humanitarian law. War crimes by one side never support war crimes by the other. Pointing that out, if that’s what Khalil did, does not make him “pro-terrorist”; it makes him pro-civilian.The Trump administration’s retaliation against Khalil is part of its larger attack on campus protests against Israeli war crimes in Gaza. Just days earlier, the administration announced the withdrawal of $400m in federal funding from Columbia for supposedly failing to protect Jewish students and faculty during anti-Israel protests, the vast majority of which were entirely peaceful. Other universities have now been threatened with a similar suspension of their funding.Coincidentally, I spoke on the Columbia campus days before Khalil’s detention. As a Jew, I did not feel the least bit threatened. Indeed, many of the protesters against Israeli atrocities have been Jewish. Again, Trump’s pretext for censoring critics of Israel is transparently thin.If we tolerate an Israel exception to our rights of free speech, we can be sure that other exceptions will follow. Trump likes to half-jokingly refer to himself as a “king”. Are we heading toward a Thailand-style lèse majesté under which criticism of the king is criminalized?But censoring criticism of Israel is a poor strategy even for protecting Israel. Trump’s plan to “solve” Israel’s Palestinian problem by forcibly deporting millions of Palestinians would be a huge war crime; it has been rightly rejected by the Arab states that Trump envisioned receiving the refugees or later paying to rebuild Gaza.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionFailing that plan, the Israeli government would prefer the status quo – endless occupation – but the world increasingly rejects that option as apartheid, as did the international court of justice in July. Another option would be to recognize the “one-state reality” created by Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, but the Israeli government refuses to provide equal rights to all residents. Roughly the same number of Jews and Arabs like between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, so Israel would lose its Jewish majority.The most realistic, legal and enduring option remains a two-state solution, an Israeli and Palestinian state living side by side in peace. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has devoted his political career to avoiding a Palestinian state, but it is the best prospect for lasting peace.In pressing Netanyahu to agree to the current temporary ceasefire in Gaza, Trump showed his capacity to exert pressure on the Israeli government to take steps toward peace that it resists. He could do the same for a two-state solution.But to build a political support for this important step, we need free debate in the United States. Trump’s efforts to censor criticism of Israeli misconduct is a recipe for endless war and atrocities. Free speech is required if we hope to do better. Trump should reverse his misguided effort to deport Khalil.

      Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch (1993-2022), is a visiting professor at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs. His book Righting Wrongs was just published by Knopf More