Alyssa VanPelt-Cathcart, Staff Writer
People have been globally protesting in response to the war between Hamas and Israel within Palestine, the Gaza Strip, and Israel. There have been many protests hosted by students from various colleges in New York such as SUNY New Paltz, University at Albany, and Columbia University. One student, Mahmoud Khalil, was recently arrested earlier this month.
Mahmoud Khalil, according to CNN, “was born a Palestinian refugee in Syria, but his family is from Tiberias, an Israeli city that was once known for its mixed Jewish and Arab population.” Khalil’s arrest is being titled as illegal given that he has legal status within the U.S., calling it a response to him enacting his first amendment rights.
Columbia University’s students were participating in encampments and staged teach-ins. However, Khalil did not participate at the time because he feared it would affect his student visa. But before long, Khalil took part in these protests. “He gave speeches and was one of the students selected to lead discussions with university administrators on behalf of Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a coalition of student organizations that demanded, among other things, the university to divest from its financial ties to Israel and a ceasefire in Gaza,” According to CNN.
In addition to Khalil’s participation, he spoke out to “disavow” moments of severe antisemitism within their protests. “There is, of course, no place for antisemitism. What we are witnessing is anti-Palestinian sentiment that’s taking different forms and antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism (are) some of these forms,” Khalil stated to CNN last April.
On Mar. 18, the ACLU published a letter Khalil had written from the Louisiana detention center. “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 underway against a great many people precluded from the protections of the law,” Khaili wrote in the letter. “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.” He goes on to explain what happened the day he was arrested and the reason for it, “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.”
Khalil believes he is not only working for his own liberty, but to liberate his oppressors from their hatred and fear. He understands his arrest is being used as a symbol to silence other protesters. However, he states, “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.”
According to a CNN article, more than 1.7 million people have signed a letter to demand Khalil’s release. And in New York City, hundreds gathered outside the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building to express their calls of release too.
The U.S. is full of diversity and it becomes almost impossible to find common ground. However, perhaps Khalil is correct in promoting the activism of students and finding the power within younger generations to create a safer world.
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