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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   32206 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 10, 2025

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DHS has already deported a Columbia graduate student (who was a student in December so not a current student it seems).

On March 9, 2025, in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism, and in coordination with the Department of State, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University graduate student. Khalil led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.

ICE and the Department of State are committed to enforcing President Trump’s executive orders and to protecting U.S. national security.

More details from AP:

Federal immigration authorities arrested a Palestinian activist Saturday who played a prominent role in Columbia University’s protests against Israel, a significant escalation in the Trump administration’s pledge to detain and deport student activists.

Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia until this past December, was inside his university-owned apartment Saturday night when several Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents entered and took him into custody, his attorney, Amy Greer, told The Associated Press.

Greer said she spoke by phone with one of the ICE agents during the arrest, who said they were acting on State Department orders to revoke Khalil’s student visa. Informed by the attorney that Khalil was in the United States as a permanent resident with a green card, the agent said they were revoking that instead, according to the lawyer.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, confirmed Khalil’s arrest in a statement Sunday, describing it as being “in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism.”

It's all so tiresome. It certainly puts the BLM Riots in context- they can shut down protest when they want to.

I'm not sure in the long run it's going to be a good strategy to resort to such overt hard power. Zionism in the United States is facing an unprecedented pincer movement from both the Left and the Right opposing it from different angles of critique. Every day that goes by, the Progressives on X complaining about Zionist influence in American society are starting to sound more and more like their right-wing counterparts. Who can blame them when they are forced to face the stark reality of hard power when they want to protest Israel?

I'm personally excited for the protestors to get deported. I am ambivalent about Israel. I don't really care what they do to the Palestinians but dislike Israel's behavior vis a vis America. That being said, the anti-Israel protestors are not just anti-Israel, they are also anti-white. I am fairly certain that more people at these protests are more motivated by anti-"white settler" animus (they think Israelis are white, this is half of the objection) than they are by anti-Jewish feeling.

At many of the college Gaza encampments last year, there were plenty of anti-American, anti-police, and pro-communism messages in addition to the anti-Israel messages graffitied on the campus buildings. Foreigners should to know better than to associate with these groups, and if they do, they should not be allowed to live in America. I'd like to see any foreigners associated with BLM riots deported too, but I'm happy to take a win when it's offered and hopefully see a bunch of third-worldist Arabs and Africans get deported. People who talk about killing settlers want to kill white South Africans, Australians, and Americans too -- if I have to pretend to deeply care about Israel to get them deported back to their countries that is okay with me. If these deportations damage support for Zionism, that is also okay with me, I want deportations, not another 100 billion dollars for Israel.

From Red perspective, this makes sense. Not many foreigners or green card holders are involved in Red protests and activities, even if the Blues gained the upper hand again and wanted to use this precedent.

Every day that goes by, the Progressives on X complaining about Zionist influence in American society are starting to sound more and more like their right-wing counterparts. Who can blame them when they are forced to face the stark reality of hard power when they want to protest Israel?

Who can blame them indeed, one of the most red-pilling bits of information for me was learning congress critters each had a "personal" AIPAC handler, they all had "a guy". Their own personal guy.

If you believe Thomas Massie while trying to present himself as incorruptible and unlike every other politician.

Do you have any actual evidence that he was lying or just insinuations?

It's a lot harder to sympathize with people as just another political advocacy organization when the thing they're advocating for is an islamist terror group, which is one of the closest things we have these days to out-and-out hostis humani generis.

And to be clear, that would be as true for people waiving Boko Haram or Janjaweed flags as Hamas or Hizbullah.

The anti-zionists would have a much easier row to hoe if the palestinian oppostion were still secularist/leftist.

It should be noted that all the verbiage of the EO and pending legislation identifies "antisemitic acts" and not merely "advocating for a terrorist group." The US has adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance working definition of Antisemitism which includes, among other things:

  • Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.
  • Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.
  • Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.
  • Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.
  • Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.
  • Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.
  • Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.
  • Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
  • Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.

So with these EOs and legislation talking about, like the "the No Visas for Anti-Semitic Students Act" specify only antisemitic acts with the definition above being the actual, real working definition used to define an antisemitic act.

Jewish orgs are already drafting lists of specific students they want to see deported so we'll see how far Trump goes with this. I don't think ICE showing up to deport pro-Palestinian protestors is going to work in the long-run.

Jewish orgs are already drafting lists of specific students they want to see deported

Exactly the kind of Jewish orgs you would expect.

Betar

If only we could get a few billion dollars to start the Hadrian Foundation for Lasting Peace In The Middle East

It's an excuse to crack down on left wingers.

I mean technically by the definition of this list, any pro-Palestinian protest is by definition antisemitism as the central claims are Israel as colonial power ethnically cleansing the Palestinians and at current commuting a genocide. I don’t see how you could have a “kosher” pro-Palestine position that doesn’t run against these rules. I mean I think the most you could say is “Israel should turn on the electric grid” or something. And that’s probably not mild enough.

There's pro-Palestinian protests and there's pro-Palestinian protests. I don't think there's much sympathy for the latter, however there would rightly be a huge outcry over targeting the former.

EDIT - the one guy named in the article you linked seems to have...uh...some spicy takes about October 7 and the proper solution to the Israel/Palestine question. Those takes in and of themselves are obviously not grounds for deportation (although given what he teaches - "a first-year Africana Studies writing seminar called 'What is Blackness? Race and Processes of Racialization'" - I can't imagine we'd be losing that much of real merit - or anything that you in particular would particularly like having in our country).

However, one of the protests he was involved with allegedly involved a mob forcing their way inside a hotel where a career fair including Boeing and L3Harris was being held (those companies make weapons which Israel uses, which apparently makes them persona non grata), and making the event impossible to continue through the use of "bullhorns, cymbals, pots, and pans" and chanting. He also appears to have been a ringleader in Cornell's SJP encampment. Regardless of the cause, it's reasonable for a college to suspend someone over that kind of disruptive behavior which is sufficient to cause loss of an F-1 visa, apparently. The guy knew the terms of his immigration status, and still thought that playing radical was more important. FAFO.

one of the protests he was involved with allegedly involved a mob forcing their way inside a hotel where a career fair including Boeing and L3Harris was being held (those companies make weapons which Israel uses, which apparently makes them persona non grata), and making the event impossible to continue through the use of "bullhorns, cymbals, pots, and pans" and chanting. He also appears to have been a ringleader in Cornell's SJP encampment.

Student visas have (hypothetically) strict rules. If a student wants to drive drunk or advocate for terrorists then they can do so in their home country. The natural default state is a particular foreigner not being allowed into the US. They have no right to be here, merely a rarely granted conditional privilege.

I understand that enforcement has been lax for quite a while. I remember in college the members of the Muslim Student Union advocating for designated terrorist organizations. A lot were foreign students. As best I know they were not deported for violating the terms of their visas. This was a failure in law enforcement.

Now in the littlest way the rules are being enforced. I say good. We give some few foreign students conditional visas, let's then enforce the rules.

I hope very much that a foreign guest student who disrupts an American career fair with defense companies gets deported. The sooner the better. They have no right to be here and can prosper opposing American defense capability in their home country.

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