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Columbia University Bans Pro-Hamas Classroom Agitators From Campus
A pro-Hamas demonstrator uses a megaphone at Columbia University, on the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, in New York City, US, Oct. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mike Segar
Columbia University has banned from its campus multiple masked individuals who disrupted an active class last week and proceeded to utter pro-Hamas statements while distributing antisemitic literature.
“The university has identified two additional participants who are not Columbia students but are from an unaffiliated institution,” Columbia’s public affairs office said in a statement issued on Monday. “These participants have been barred from Columbia’s campus and referred to their home institution for further investigation and discipline.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the agitators stormed into Professor Avi Shilon’s course, titled “History of Modern Israel,” on the first day of classes of the new semester last Tuesday. Clad in keffiyehs, which were wrapped on their faces to conceal their identities, they read prepared remarks which described the course as “Zionist and imperialist” and a “normalization of genocide.”As part of their performance, which they appeared to film, they dropped flyers, one of which contained an illustration of a lifted boot preparing to trample a Star of David. Next to the drawing was a message that said, “Crush Zionism.”
The incident set off an explosion of responses on social media. The US House Committee on Education and the Workforce — now chaired by Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) — warned that such behavior “will no longer be tolerated in the Trump administration,” while Columbia University professor and activist Shai Davidai demanded “strong action.” Later, Shilon said in an op-ed published by the Israeli publication Ynetnews that Columbia needs to “reevaluate” its safety policies, noting that students should not be able to “walk around wearing masks.”
Wrote Shilon, “Since I had arrived in New York just a few days before the course began, and I was convinced that the protests from last year had already subsided, the moment I saw the masked men my first instinct was to think they were terrorists. After a second, I regained my composure and stood up toward them. I looked at the students in the classroom: they all continued to sit, perhaps frightened, perhaps disturbed.”
Following the incident, Columbia suspended one of the students involved in it, quelling concerns that school officials would do nothing to hold the agitators accountable. Additionally, interim university president Katrina Armstrong has since said that the New York City Police Department (NYPD) may be asked to help preserve law and order on school grounds.
“Unfortunately, recent events have shown that our community continues to a face a significant risk of disruption on the Morningside campus, including from outside demonstrators, threatening our community members’ sense of safety, and creating the potential need to bring the NYPD on campus,” Armstrong said in a statement issued on Jan. 25. “We have a duty to ensure that everyone in our community is safe, feels welcome, and can fully participate in our academic mission.”
Columbia University has allegedly refused to levy disciplinary sanctions against anti-Zionist agitators in the past.
In August, the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce denounced university officials for punishing only a few of the anti-Zionist activists who last spring occupied an administrative building and staged a riot which prompted the university to advise Jews to refrain from coming to campus. According to documents shared by the committee, 18 of the 22 students who were given disciplinary charges for their role in the incident were later upgraded to “good standing” despite the university’s earlier pledge to expel them. Another 31 of 35 who were suspended for illegally occupying the campus with a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” were restored to good standing as well.
Amnestying those students was “disgraceful and unacceptable,” former education committee chairwoman Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) said at the time.
She added, “By allowing its own disciplinary process to be thwarted by radical students and faculty, Columbia has waved the white flag in surrender while offering up a get-out-of-jail-free card to those who participated in these unlawful actions.”
Columbia University’s handling of campus antisemitism and political extremism will continue to be scrutinized, as it is now legally bound, via a civil settlement, to protect the civil rights of Jewish students. In June 2024, it settled a lawsuit in which it was accused by a student of neglecting its obligation to foster a safe learning environment amid riotous pro-Hamas protests that were held at the school throughout the final weeks of the academic year.
The resolution of the case called for Columbia to hire a “Safe Passage Liaison” who will monitor protests and “walking escorts” who will accompany students whose safety is threatened around the campus. Other details of the settlement include “accommodations” for students whose academic lives are disrupted by protests and new security policies for controlling access to school property.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Columbia University Bans Pro-Hamas Classroom Agitators From Campus first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Immigration Judge Rules Palestinian Columbia Student Khalil Can Be Deported
Mahmoud Khalil speaks to members of media about the Revolt for Rafah encampment at Columbia University during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza, in New York City, US, June 1, 2024. Photo: Jeenah Moon via Reuters Connect
A US immigration judge ruled on Friday that Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil can be deported, allowing President Donald Trump’s administration to proceed with its effort to remove the Columbia University student from the United States a month after his arrest in New York City.
The ruling by Judge Jamee Comans of the LaSalle Immigration Court in Louisiana was not a final determination of Khalil’s fate. But it represented a significant victory for the Republican president in his efforts to deport foreign pro-Palestinian students who are in the United States legally and, like Khalil, have not been charged with any crime.
Citing the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, Trump-appointed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio determined last month that Khalil could harm American foreign policy interests and should be deported for his “otherwise lawful” speech and activism.
Comans said that she did not have the authority to overrule a secretary of state. The judge denied a motion by Khalil’s lawyers to subpoena Rubio and question him about the “reasonable grounds” he had for his determination under the 1952 law.
The judge’s decision came after a combative 90-minute hearing held in a court located inside a jail complex for immigrants surrounded by double-fenced razor wire run by private government contractors in rural Louisiana.
Khalil, a prominent figure in the anti-Israel student protest movement that has roiled Columbia’s New York City campus, was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, holds Algerian citizenship and became a US lawful permanent resident last year. Khalil’s wife is a US citizen.
For now, Khalil remains in the Louisiana jail where federal authorities transferred him after his March 8 arrest at his Columbia University apartment building some 1,200 miles (1,930 km) away. Comans gave Khalil’s lawyers until April 23 to apply for relief before she considers whether to issue a deportation order. An immigration judge can rule that a migrant cannot be deported because of possible persecution in a home country, among other limited grounds.
In a separate case in New Jersey, US District Judge Michael Farbiarz has blocked deportation while he considers Khalil’s claim that his arrest was made in violation of the US Constitution’s First Amendment protections for freedom of speech.
KHALIL ADDRESSES THE JUDGE
As Comans adjourned, Khalil leaned forward, asking to address the court. Comans hesitated, then agreed.
Khalil quoted her remarks at his hearing on Tuesday that nothing was more important to the court than “due process rights and fundamental fairness.”
“Clearly what we witnessed today, neither of these principles were present today or in this whole process,” Khalil said. “This is exactly why the Trump administration has sent me to this court, a thousand miles away from my family.”
The judge said her ruling turned on an undated, two-page letter signed by Rubio and submitted to the court and to Khalil’s counsel.
Khalil’s lawyers, appearing via a video link, complained they were given less than 48 hours to review Rubio’s letter and evidence submitted by the Trump administration to Comans this week. Marc Van Der Hout, Khalil’s lead immigration attorney, repeatedly asked for the hearing to be delayed. Comans reprimanded him for what the judge said was straying from the hearing’s purpose, twice saying he had “an agenda.”
Comans said that the 1952 immigration law gave the secretary of state “unilateral judgment” to make his determination about Khalil.
Khalil should be removed, Rubio wrote, for his role in “antisemitic protests and disruptive activities, which fosters a hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States.”
Rubio’s letter did not accuse Khalil of breaking any laws, but said the State Department can revoke the legal status of immigrants who could harm US foreign policy interests even when their beliefs, associations or statements are “otherwise lawful.”
After Comans ended the hearing, several of Khalil’s supporters wept as they left the courtroom. Khalil stood and smiled at them, making a heart shape with his hands.
Khalil has said criticism of the US government’s support of Israel is being wrongly conflated with antisemitism. His lawyers told the court they were submitting into evidence Khalil’s interviews last year with CNN and other news outlets in which he denounces antisemitism and other prejudice.
His lawyers have said the Trump administration was targeting him for protected speech including the right to criticize American foreign policy.
“Mahmoud was subject to a charade of due process, a flagrant violation of his right to a fair hearing and a weaponization of immigration law to suppress dissent,” Van Der Hout said in a statement after the hearing.
The American immigration court system is run and its judges are appointed by the US Justice Department, separate from the government’s judicial branch.
The post US Immigration Judge Rules Palestinian Columbia Student Khalil Can Be Deported first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Releases Video of Israeli-American Hostage Held in Gaza
FILE PHOTO: Yael, Adi and Mika Alexander, the family of Edan Alexander, the American-Israeli and Israel Defense Forces soldier taken hostage during the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas, pose for a photograph during an interview with Reuters at the Alexander’s home in Tenafly, New Jersey, U.S., December 14, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Stephani Spindel/File Photo
Hamas on Saturday released a video purportedly of Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander, who has been held in Gaza since he was captured by Palestinian terrorists on October 7, 2023.
In the undated video, the man who introduces himself as Edan Alexander states he has been held in Gaza for 551 days. The man questions why he is still being held and pleads for his release.
Alexander is a soldier serving in the Israeli military.
The edited video was released as Jews began to mark Passover, a weeklong holiday that celebrates freedom. Alexander’s family released a statement acknowledging the video that said the holiday would not be one of freedom as long as Edan and the 58 other hostages in Gaza remained in captivity.
Hamas has released several videos over the course of the war of hostages begging to be released. Israeli officials have dismissed past videos as propaganda that is designed to put pressure on the government. The war is in its eighteenth month.
Hamas released 38 hostages under a ceasefire that began on January 19. In March, Israel’s military resumed its ground and aerial campaign on Gaza, abandoning the ceasefire after Hamas rejected proposals to extend the truce without ending the war.
Israeli officials say that campaign will continue until the remaining 59 hostages are freed and Gaza is demilitarized. Hamas insists it will free hostages only as part of a deal to end the war and has rejected demands to lay down its arms.
The US, Qatar and Egypt are mediating between Hamas and Israel.
The post Hamas Releases Video of Israeli-American Hostage Held in Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Some Progress in Hostage Talks But Major Issues Remain, Source tells i24NEWS
Demonstrators hold signs and pictures of hostages, as relatives and supporters of Israeli hostages kidnapped during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas protest demanding the release of all hostages in Tel Aviv, Israel, Feb. 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Itai Ron
i24 News – A source familiar with the ongoing negotiations for a hostage deal confirmed to i24NEWS on Friday that some progress has been made in talks, currently taking place with Egypt, including the exchange of draft proposals. However, it remains unclear whether Hamas will ultimately accept the emerging framework. According to the source, discussions are presently focused on reaching a cohesive outline with Cairo.
A delegation of senior Hamas officials is expected to arrive in Cairo tomorrow. While there is still no finalized draft, even Arab sources acknowledge revisions to Egypt’s original proposal, reportedly including a degree of flexibility in the number of hostages Hamas is willing to release.
The source noted that Hamas’ latest proposal to release five living hostages is unacceptable to Israel, which continues to adhere to the “Witkoff framework.” At the core of this framework is the release of a significant number of hostages, alongside a prolonged ceasefire period—Israel insists on 40 days, while Hamas is demanding more. The plan avoids intermittent pauses or distractions, aiming instead for uninterrupted discussions on post-war arrangements.
As previously reported, Israel is also demanding comprehensive medical and nutritional reports on all living hostages as an early condition of the deal.
“For now,” the source told i24NEWS, “Hamas is still putting up obstacles. We are not at the point of a done deal.” Israeli officials emphasize that sustained military and logistical pressure on Hamas is yielding results, pointing to Hamas’ shift from offering one hostage to five in its most recent agreement.
Negotiators also assert that Israel’s demands are fully backed by the United States. Ultimately, Israeli officials are adamant: no negotiations on the “day after” will take place until the hostage issue is resolved—a message directed not only at Hamas, but also at mediators.
The post Some Progress in Hostage Talks But Major Issues Remain, Source tells i24NEWS first appeared on Algemeiner.com.