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Some organizations applauded the move. But the raid chilled other American Jews, even some who consider themselves supporters of Israel.
March 11, 2025Updated 7:41 a.m. ET
The arrest of a former Columbia University graduate student who gained prominence amid that campus’s pro-Palestinian demonstrations has divided the American Jewish community, which finds itself trying to reconcile a longstanding focus on Jewish safety and support for Israel with a historical commitment to civil liberties.
Immigration authorities’ detention of the activist, Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident, has satisfied some American Jews who had wished for blunt action from Columbia in recent months as protest groups praised Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, in which the group killed about 1,200 people and abducted 250, and as masked protesters disrupted classes and occupied university buildings.
A few hours after news broke on Sunday of the arrest of Mr. Khalil, who has not been accused of having contact with Hamas, the Anti-Defamation League, a century-old organization committed to fighting antisemitism, released a statement applauding the “swift and severe consequences for those who provide material support to foreign terrorist organizations.”
But the raid chilled other American Jews — among them ones who consider themselves supporters of Israel and ones troubled primarily by Israel’s military response, which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, including many women and children. They see their security as inextricably bound up with that of other minority groups.
“Any Jew who thinks this is going to start and stop with a few Palestinian activists is fooling themselves,” Amy Spitalnick, who runs the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and identifies as a progressive Zionist, said on social media on Monday morning. “Our community should not be used as an excuse to upend democracy & the rule of law.”
Mr. Khalil, who is married to an American citizen, was detained on Saturday by federal immigration officers, in a striking escalation of the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on what it sees as a scourge of antisemitism on college campuses. He is being detained at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Louisiana. A federal judge in Manhattan on Monday ordered the government not to deport Mr. Khalil while the judge reviewed legal filings challenging his detention.
