You haven’t heard much from anti-Israel campus agitator Mahmoud Khalil lately, and there may be a reason for that. He wants to stay in the U.S., and this time around a tad less visibility helps him. Not that he’s become a wallflower—he’s just more selective in where he shows up right now.
Given all that happens and is forgotten from one news cycle to the next, here’s a little refresher on the ungrateful non-American who made his name last year preaching hate on the campus of Columbia University.
On March 8 of this year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested Khalil at his New York City apartment and then took him to a detention center in Louisiana as part of the formal deportation process.
Khalil is not an American citizen. He was born in the mid-1990s at a refugee camp in Syria. His parents are described as Palestinian and Algerian, so he has citizenship in Algeria. Before coming to America, he earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science at the Lebanese American University in Beirut, Lebanon, and then applied for admission into Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. In December 2024, he received his master of public administration degree.
According to all reports, he is a green-card holder and thus a legal resident of the United States who also happens to be married to a U.S. citizen. So far, he’s been careful to check all of the boxes, right?
In the spring of 2024, a few months before he graduated from Columbia, those inorganic “pro-Palestine protests” started to erupt almost simultaneously on campuses across the country. Columbia became the site of some of the most contentious activity, and Khalil was at the heart of it all.
In April of that year, the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” set itself up on the East Butler Lawn and refused to budge. On April 29, an intimidating group of students—and possibly some non-students—occupied Hamilton Hall on campus. They stayed there for 24 hours until New York City police cleared them out. There were further actions in the fall but not as large or as disorderly as those in the spring.
A group called Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), the organizer of the campus disruptions, designated Khalil as its spokesperson and chief negotiator. Or did he elect himself? It’s unclear. He was, in effect, the ringleader.
As is often the case with people like this, you wouldn’t find him risking his safety or anything else by joining the group in its “direct actions,” like taking over Hamilton Hall. I think Barack Obama once called this “leading from behind.” Khalil was the one who served as the negotiator between the mob and the school’s administration.
Since the situation received extensive global media coverage, Khalil became the face of the student anti-Israel movement.
What type of negotiator was he? His critics described him as ginning up the mob to the extent it intimidated and terrorized Jewish students, in particular. Some have used words like “antisemite” to describe him.
This is Syrian national Mahmoud Khalil’s work at Columbia—leading a group that violently broke into a building, trashed it, took a janitor hostage, and caused hundreds of thousands in damages.
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http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/2025/10/30/anti-israel-agitator-mahmoud-khalil-says-his-appeal-process-is-moving-too-fast-tim-obrian/
