Mahmoud Khalil, the pro-Palestinian Arab activist who organized anti-Israel protests at Columbia University, refused to condemn the Hamas terrorist organization for anything, including the October 7 massacre, during an appearance on CNN yesterday (Tuesday).
During his appearance on "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer” program, co-host Pamela Brown asked Khalil: “Do you specifically condemn Hamas, a designated terrorist organization in the United States, not just for their actions on October 7?”
Khalil responded by calling it “absurd” to ask him to condemn the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and the kidnapping of 250 people, 50 of whom remain captive nearly two years later.
He insisted that he condemned the killing of "all civilians" while again refusing to condemn Hamas for murdering Israeli civilians.
When asked again if he would condemn Hamas, he reiterated: “No, I am very clear with condemning all civilians. I’m very straight in my position in that part,” said Khalil, who was visibly flustered, later blasting the question as “selective outrage.”
“But it’s disingenuous to ask about condemning Hamas while Palestinians are the ones being starved now by Israel. It’s not condemning October 6, where 260 Palestinians were killed by Israel before October 7," he claimed.
Brown continued to press the issue, as the Trump Administration cited Khalil's alleged support for Hamas while he organized the antisemitic protests at Columbia University as grounds to deport him.
“As I said, disingenuous and absurd to ask such questions," Khalil said. "That’s why I wouldn’t really engage much into such questions on condemnation or not. Because selective condemnations is not, wouldn’t get us anywhere. It’s just like hypocrite, to be honest.”
Khalil also met Tuesday with far-left US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt).
Khalil was arrested on March 8 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents as part of the administration’s crackdown on anti-Israel protests on US campuses.
At the time of his arrest, Khalil was a highly visible figure in the nationwide campus protests against the war in Gaza. Following his detention, US authorities transferred Khalil from his New York home to a detention center in Louisiana, where he awaited deportation proceedings.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had invoked a law, approved during the 1950s Red Scare, which permits the United States to remove foreign nationals deemed adverse to US foreign policy.
However, a judge later ruled that the government could not detain or deport Khalil based on Rubio's assertions that his presence on US soil constituted a national security threat.
Khalil was released on bail in late June and has filed a lawsuit seeking $20 million in damages from the Trump administration.