Liberal Jewish groups joined the chorus condemning the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian protest leader at Columbia University who was detained by ICE and threatened with deportation.
The statements came amid a cascade of condemnation and protest Monday from Democratic politicians and progressive groups.
President Donald Trump, meanwhile, hailed the arrest and pledged to deport Khalil, a recent Columbia graduate and legal resident who holds a green card.
Khalil is a leader of Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a hardline group that has taken a central role in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University. Multiple progressive Jewish groups that supported or defended those protests — including Jewish Voice for Peace, Bend the Arc and IfNotNow — condemned Khalil’s arrest as an authoritarian action.
But those groups are being joined by a number of liberal Jewish organizations that previously criticized pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia, or that have expressed concern about antisemitism at anti-Israel protests. While a number of pro-Israel groups praised or welcomed the arrest, at least two liberal Zionist organizations, J Street and Zioness, have expressed alarm over it.
Zioness, J Street and several other liberal Jewish groups, like a wide array of Democratic politicians, say they’re concerned by the legal implications of detaining and trying to deport a lawful resident of the United States based on his protest activity. That tactic, several worried, could come to also be used against Jews, as it has elsewhere.
“Jews & our communal institutions have always fought to protect civil rights & civil liberties – including free speech, even when totally disgusted by the content – because societies with those protections are the only ones in which we, as a tiny minority community, can ever be safe,” Zioness said in a statement, adding that it viewed Khalil as a “raging antisemite” who probably should have been expelled from Columbia.
“We must defend US Constitution without defending Khalil’s vile, antisemitic, anti-American ideology,” the statement added. “Rule of law matters most when things are complicated, not when they’re simple. Any extra-legal tools used ‘for us’ can be turned against us. We should assume they will.”
J Street U, the liberal Israel lobby’s college arm, said it “does not endorse Khalil’s actions or positions,” but added, “We are appalled by the dangerous precedent set by his arrest. Our community can and must stand up for constitutional rights for all, even those with whom we may strongly disagree.”
Other groups — including the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the New York Jewish Agenda, New Jewish Narrative and the Nexus Project — echoed those concerns.
“The Trump administration is exploiting real concerns about antisemitism to undercut democracy,” Amy Spitalnick, JCPA’s CEO, said in a statement. “Any Jew who thinks this is going to start and stop with a few Palestinian activists is fooling themselves.”
The Nexus statement, while expressing concern about antisemitism and the tome of campus protests, said, “Authoritarian federal overreach and apparent disregard for due process only makes Jews less safe.” NYJA likewise condemned campus antisemitism but added, regarding Khalil’s arrest, “This kind of authoritarian action is incompatible with our vision for immigrant rights and a pluralistic democracy.”
Rep. Jerry Nadler, a pro-Israel Jewish Democrat who has represented parts of Manhattan for more than three decades, said he was monitoring the situation but condemned the arrest. “The warrantless arrest of any legal permanent resident seemingly solely over their speech is a chilling, McCarthyesque action in response to the exercise of first amendment rights to free speech,” he wrote, adding that it “will not make Jewish students safer on campus.”
And Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said her group was “deeply concerned about antisemitism and protests on college campuses. But deporting legal residents from our country without due process because we disagree with their views is un-American and will make neither Jews nor our democracy more secure.”
Those criticisms came as Trump was cheering the arrest, crediting an executive order he signed in January that raised the possibility of deporting foreign students who support terrorism. He said more students would face the same punishment.
“Following my previously signed Executive Orders, ICE proudly apprehended and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student on the campus of Columbia University,” Trump posted on social media. “This is the first arrest of many to come. We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it.”
The White House’s X account shared the post, adding, in all caps, “SHALOM, MAHMOUD.”
Meanwhile, protests against the arrest are mounting across the city and beyond. Two separate ones were scheduled for Monday in separate Manhattan locations, one at Federal Plaza downtown, and the other, with the participation of progressive Jewish groups, near Columbia uptown.
At least half of the 10 Democrats running for mayor have condemned the arrest. On Monday, state Attorney General Letitia James said she was “extremely concerned about the arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil, an advocate and legal permanent resident of Palestinian descent.”
A series of Democratic officials in addition to Nadler have condemned the arrest. An X account representing Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee said the arrest should “terrify everyone.”
And the condemnations were joined by a particularly unexpected voice — the far-right pundit Ann Coulter.
“There’s almost no one I don’t want to deport, but, unless they’ve committed a crime, isn’t this a violation of the first amendment?” she wrote.
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