# There can be no ‘Israel exception’ for free speech

Trump should reverse his misguided effort to deport Mahmoud Khalil

The Trump administration’s threatened deportation of  seems to reflect a dangerous disregard for freedom of expression – a blatant example of official censorship to curb criticism of Israel.

Khalil was a  of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. He holds a green card, giving him permanent residence status, and is married to a US citizen. They are expecting their first child soon. Immigration agents  in his university housing and sent him for detention from New York City to Louisiana. He had been a  against Israeli war crimes in Gaza.

Beyond that, the facts are contested. His friends  “kind, expressive and gentle”. A Columbia professor  him as “someone who seeks mediated resolutions through speech and dialogue. This is not someone who engages in violence, or gets people riled up to do dangerous things.”

But Donald Trump, hailing his arrest,  Khalil was among students “who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity”. The administration has presented no facts to back up these assertions, but even were it to do so, the suggestion that permissible speech can be a basis for deportation is deeply troubling. Trump vowed more such deportation efforts.

Ordinarily, the first amendment protects even offensive speech. Although the government retains greater  to deport non-citizens, Trump’s rhetoric suggests an intention to step way over the line of propriety. What does it mean to be “anti-American”? As we saw during the  era, people can face that accusation for a wide range of legitimate political views. Such campaigns are the antithesis of the free debate that is essential for US democracy.

As for the charge of “antisemitism”, Trump seems to be fueling a disturbing  to use claims of antisemitism to silence criticism of the Israeli government. Antisemitism is a serious problem that threatens Jews around the world. But if people see accusations of antisemitism as mere efforts to censor critics of Israel, it would cheapen the concept at a time when the defense against real antisemitism is urgently needed.

Even Trump’s unsupported suggestion that Khalil is “pro-terrorist” needs unpacking. To begin with, opposing Israel’s indiscriminate and disproportionate  on Palestinian civilians, as well as its starvation of them, does not make anyone pro-terrorist. Israel is required to carry out its military response to Hamas’s appalling murders and abductions of 7 October 2023 in accordance with international humanitarian law. War crimes by one side  support war crimes by the other. Pointing that out, if that’s what Khalil did, does not make him “pro-terrorist”; it makes him pro-civilian.

> Trump’s efforts to censor criticism of Israeli misconduct is a recipe for endless war and atrocities

The Trump administration’s retaliation against Khalil is part of its larger attack on campus protests against Israeli war crimes in Gaza. Just days earlier, the administration announced the  of $400m in federal funding from Columbia for supposedly failing to protect Jewish students and faculty during anti-Israel protests, the vast majority of which were entirely peaceful. Other universities have now been threatened with a similar suspension of their funding.

Coincidentally, I spoke on the Columbia campus days before Khalil’s detention. As a Jew, I did not feel the least bit threatened. Indeed, many of the protesters against Israeli atrocities have been Jewish. Again, Trump’s pretext for censoring critics of  is transparently thin.

If we tolerate an Israel exception to our rights of free speech, we can be sure that other exceptions will follow. Trump likes to half-jokingly refer to himself as a “”. Are we heading toward a Thailand-style _èse majesté_ under which criticism of the king is criminalized?

But censoring criticism of Israel is a poor strategy even for protecting Israel. Trump’s  to “solve” Israel’s Palestinian problem by forcibly deporting millions of Palestinians would be a huge ; it has been rightly  by the Arab states that Trump envisioned receiving the refugees or later paying to rebuild Gaza.



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Failing that plan, the Israeli government would prefer the status quo – endless occupation – but the world increasingly rejects that option as , as  the international court of justice in July. Another option would be to recognize the “one-state reality” created by Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, but the Israeli government refuses to provide equal rights to all residents. Roughly the same number of Jews and Arabs live between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, so Israel would lose its Jewish majority.

The most realistic, legal and enduring option remains a two-state solution, an Israeli and Palestinian state living side by side in peace. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has devoted his political career to avoiding a Palestinian state, but it is the best prospect for lasting peace.

In pressing Netanyahu to agree to the current temporary ceasefire in , Trump showed his capacity to exert pressure on the Israeli government to take steps toward peace that it resists. He could do the same for a two-state solution.

But to build a political support for this important step, we need free debate in the United States. Trump’s efforts to censor criticism of Israeli misconduct is a recipe for endless war and atrocities. Free speech is required if we hope to do better. Trump should reverse his misguided effort to deport Khalil.

- Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch (1993-2022), is a visiting professor at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs. His book  was just published by Knopf
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