On the heels of its dishonest coverage of deported immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Media Research Center found another disfavored person — this time, a student protester — to smear, starting with a March 11 post by Jorge Bonilla:
The networks had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into coverage of the virulent antisemitic protests at major universities across the United States, beginning with those at Columbia University in New York. The protesters’ worst excesses were often left off of reporting, lest people get the idea that they were materially supportive both of Hamas and of the atrocities they committed on October 7th, 2023. But there is, at long last, an angle worthy of thorough media coverage.
Judging by the level of concern displayed by the media, Mahmoud Khalil emerges as their truest, purest victim of the still-ongoing student protests. The worst network coverage comes via CBS Evening News Plus, a streaming product that is intended to complement the beleaguered Evening News.
Watch as correspondent Lilia Luciano describes the arrest as having a chilling effect on free speech:
[…]This report led off the Evening News Plus, and it was two-minutes plus of Luciano advocating for the protesters generally and Khalil specifically. She argued against detention and represented Khalil to viewers as a pacifying figure. Luciano also threw out the “criminality” misdirection, suggesting that Khalil has to be found guilty of a crime before being deported.
That simply isn’t the case. Khalil is reported to have been lead negotiator for a group called Columbia University Apartheid Divest, which has openly and brazenly supported Hamas in its war against Israel. That alone is sufficient cause for deportation according to a basic reading of the plain text of the statute. But that part of Khalil’s biography (like his UNRWA internship until a month after the 10/7 terror attack) gets suppressed from coverage- just like the violent persecution of Jewish students by the pro-jihadi protestors.
But Bonilla offers no proof of this — all he has is an attempt at guilt by association, claiming only what he has “reported” to have done, with no facts to back it up. Indeed, it appears there is no there there regarding Khalil. In April, the federal government laid out its rationale for targeting him, admitting he committed no crime but vaguely insisting that his activities “undermine U.S. policy to combat anti-Semitism around the world and in the United States” despite offering no evidence he has engaged in anything anti-Semitic (protesting Israel’s actions in Gaza is not anti-Semitism).
This complete lack of evidence did not stop Alex Christy from pushing the narrative later that day:
As Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil faces deportation for his part in pro-Hamas, anti-Semitic protests, PBS News Hour would have its viewers believe that he is just a victim of a presidential administration that doesn’t like having its opinions challenged. On Monday’s episode, William Brangham falsely claimed there’s no proof to support the allegations against him.
[…]Back in the real world, Columbia sent Khalil a letter warning him he may be in violation of the university’s anti-harassment policy. Khalil was also very much involved in the recent takeover of school buildings where October 7 was praised and Hezbollah leaders lionized. He was also the leader of a group called Columbia University Apartheid Divestment, which is so radical that “radical” seems insufficient.
Christy offered no proof that Khalil has ever been explicitly “pro-Hamas,” or why it’s somehow beyond “radical” for someone to call for disvestment.
Tim Graham repeated much of this in his March 12 column, which bizarrely began with whining that violent Capitol rioters were described as insurrectionists:
It would have been a dangerous drinking game during the Biden presidency to chug every time the media broadly described January 6 protesters as “insurrectionists.” It didn’t matter whether the protesters were violent or vocally supported overthrowing the government. That was the automatic journalistic assumption for every protester on the scene.
Graham failed to explain why any of that doesn’t rise to insurrectionist behavior. But then it was time to whine about Khalil:
So it’s remarkable when you consider the case of radical leftist Mahmoud Khalil and the group he led, Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD). On March 10, the network evening news shows didn’t find an “insurrectionist.” They came rushing to his defense.
The Trump administration pulled Khalil’s green card for his support for Hamas terrorism. Everything Trump does is reflexively opposed as unjust.
Perhaps because Trump does a lot of unjust things? Graham doesn’t prove otherwise, nor does he prove that Khalil ever supported “Hamas terrorism.” After obsessing for a while about Khalil’s alleged link to the pro-divestment group and suggesting that it was somehow nefarious that “he was “videos and photographs posted on X depict him holding a bullhorn near the library entrance and engaged in discussion with school administrators,” Graham concluded by ranting:
Reasonable people can debate whether it is fair and reasonable to pull Khalil’s green card and send him packing. But reasonable people should admit the reality that Khalil is an “insurrectionist.” He is a “radical,” and an “extremist.” He embraces the murder of innocent civilians in the pursuit of “liberation.” He’s not a kinder, gentler protester.
Graham is a right-wing activist, which means his definition of “reasonable” is highly skewed. And he never explains why Khalil is more insurrection-y than violent Capitol rioters.
Bonilla returned to whine in a March 12 post that non-right-wing networks aren’t pushing the MRC’s narrative on Khalil, whom he has now weirdly declared to be “terrorism-adjacent”:
ABC World News Tonight continues to champion the cause of radical campus protesters at Columbia University and elsewhere. Tonight’s report on detained green card holder Mahmoud Khalil was the continuance of an ongoing exercise in gaslighting and propaganda.
[…]The report, filed today by Aaron Katersly, follows a familiar multi-pronged pattern with regard to network news coverage of Khalil. On the one hand, there is the willful downplaying of the facts of the case, the omissions of the breadth and scope of Khalil’s activities, and intentional misrepresentation of the law.
On the other hand, there is the ongoing attempt to render Khalil a sympathetic figure. Did you know he has an American wife that is 8 months pregnant? How could you not?
Bonilla then argued that Khalil deserves to be kicked out of the country simply because the Trump administration decided he should:
At the heart of the Khalil question is whether the United States has the legal right to denaturalize and deport individuals whose conduct threatens either the government or natural security of the United States. It can be reasonably argued that Khalil qualifies for denaturalization and removal by virtue of his role in the protests, the groups with which he affiliates, and the aid and comfort to terrorists that his actions provide. Here, for example, is the Supreme Leader of Iran praising the pro-Hamas protests:
[…]To continue down the path of falsely casting Khalil as a free speech martyr is to advance the idea of color revolution within the United States. That the media continue to enable these ops raises questions of their own. Many of them.
It can be argued that Khalil is becoming a “free speech martyr” because right-wingers like Bonilla have made him one. He has yet to identify anything Khalil has actually said that warrants his deportation. He is not going to admit that his boss, Brent Bozell, arguably offered aid and comfort to terrorists by endorsing the Capitol riot and allowing his son to take part.