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Columbia’s school newspaper published an incendiary op-ed from graduate student Mahmoud Khalil — in which he mocks his classmates for “manufactured” fears of anti-Semitism and likens the university’s administration to Nazi collaborators.

Khalil’s commentary — dictated from ICE custody in Louisiana — accuses Columbia of laying the “groundwork for my abduction” and accused the Morningside Heights institution of suppressing “student dissent under the auspices of combating antisemitism.”


  Mahmoud Khalil is currently in a Louisiana ICE facility. REUTERS Mahmoud Khalil is currently in a Louisiana ICE facility. REUTERS

“The situation is oddly reminiscent of when I fled the brutality of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria and sought refuge in Lebanon,” Mahmoud said in the letter published late Friday in the Columbia Daily Spectator.

Mahmoud explicitly called out University President Minouche Shafik, former interim University President Katrina Armstrong, and the deans of the school for cooperating with the federal government.

“Last year, Columbia turned over student disciplinary records to Congress and created the Task Force on Antisemitism that broadly categorized anti-Israel sentiment as hate speech to condemn protests,” he wrote.


  Mahmoud Khalil also tears into his fellow Columbia students in his commentary. REUTERS Mahmoud Khalil also tears into his fellow Columbia students in his commentary. REUTERS

“Since my abduction on March 8, the intimidation and kidnapping of international students who stand for Palestine has only accelerated,” Khalil wrote, then listing Leqaa Kordia, Dr. Badar Khan Suri, and Rumeysa Ozturk as other political prisoners.

Mahmoud Khalil also tears into his fellow Columbia students — dismissing the fear his protests have sparked among Jewish Columbia students as “manufactured.”

“In a cruel irony, the students who publicize manufactured safety concerns regarding antisemitism are the same ones who repeatedly show up at your events looking for provocation, leaving only disappointed,” he wrote of his Jewish peers at Columbia.


  Mahmoud explicitly called out University President Minouche Shafik, former interim University President Katrina Armstrong, and the deans of the school for cooperating with the federal government. AFP via Getty Images Mahmoud explicitly called out University President Minouche Shafik, former interim University President Katrina Armstrong, and the deans of the school for cooperating with the federal government. AFP via Getty Images

“I can’t help but think that if I were in Palestine, some of these students would be the ones stopping me at checkpoints, raiding my university, piloting the drones surveilling my community, or killing my neighbors in their homes,” Mahmoud added.

In one shocking line, he compared the leadership of Columbia to World War II Nazi collaborators.

“Who can still pretend this is an educational institution and not the “Vichy on the Hudson”?”he wrote, referring to the Vichy French leaders who worked with Hitler after the nation’s conquest by Germany during the war, and who sent thousands of Jews to their deaths in concentration camps.


  In one shocking line, he compared the leadership of Columbia to World War II Nazi collaborators. Anadolu via Getty Images In one shocking line, he compared the leadership of Columbia to World War II Nazi collaborators. Anadolu via Getty Images

Khalil dictated the fiery letter through his lawyers.

Reps for the school newspaper could not immediately be reached for comment. The paper has a history of writing both pro and anti Israel op-eds, having roughly an equal number of each so far this school year.  

The foreign graduate student was taken into custody on the night of Mar. 8 in the lobby of his apartment building after his student visa was revoked by the Trump administration.

The 30-year-old Syrian of Palestinian descent — who is a citizen of Algeria —  arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents after he helped fuel back-to-back anti-Israel protests at Columbia-affiliated Barnard College last month. 

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