The Media Research Center kept up its baseless attacks on detailed student protester Mahmoud Khalil in a March 13 post by Alex Christy:
NBC’s Late Night and CBS’s The Late Show hosts Seth Meyers and Stephen Colbert were greatly displeased on their Wednesday shows that the Trump Administration is seeking to deport pro-Hamas Columbia University protest leader Mahmoud Khalil. As they tell it, Khalil is not the leader of an illegal protest movement that occupied school property and distributed pro-terrorist literature but a victim of Trump’s “naked authoritarianism” and East German-like desire to eliminate dissent.
Christy offered no evidence Kahlil is “pro-Hamas,” though he did claim that he was “pass[ing] out pro-Hamas and pro-Hezbollah propaganda at illegal occupations of university property.” But the New York Post article he cited to back up the claim never asserted that Khalil personally passed out that “propaganda,” only that they were allegedly given out during a protest he attended.
Christy called Khalil “pro-Hamas” again in a post the next day, again insisting that “Khalil was involved in demonstrations that occupied school property that distributed Hamas propaganda” while citing the same inconclusive New York Post article. This pattern continued:
- A March 15 post by Christy touted how Khalil “faces deportation for his role in pro-Hamas demonstrations at Columbia University,” asserting he was facing “consequences for illegal behavior, such as the occupation of school property or harassing others.”
- Jeffrey Lord called Khalil a “pro-Hamas agitator” in his March 15 column.
- Jorge Bonilla claimed in a March 16 post that “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan was “absolutely wrecked” by secretary of state Marco Rubio for allegedly “pretending that Khalil’s detention and denaturalization process is about viewpoint censorship,” with Rubio insisting that Khalil is a “Hamas sympathizer.”
- Tim Graham declared in his March 17 podcast that Khalil is a “pro-Hamas protest leader,” whining how “the media pretend he’s not a radical Islamist who supports killing all the Jews, starting with Israel” and insisting that Columbia University Apartheid Divest, which Khalil is allegedly a member of, is “Columbia University Apartheid Divest .” Graham did not back up those claims.
Christy came back for a March 18 post to baselessly suggest that Khalil is a liar:
HBO’s John Oliver thinks Republicans are racists, and the fact that Republicans would vehemently reject the label doesn’t matter to him. However, on Sunday’s Last Week Tonight, Oliver tried to claim that former Columbia University student and pro-Hamas protest leader Mahmoud Khalil isn’t anti-Semitic because Khalil claims he’s not and therefore the efforts to deport him are an attempt by the Trump Administration to silence opinions they do not like.
Oliver declared that, “Clearly, you shouldn’t be deporting green card holders for their views. And for what it’s worth: Regardless of what others may’ve said or done during those protests, Khalil himself explicitly said, ‘anti-Semitism, and any other form of racism, has no place on this campus and in this movement.’”
[…]Blood libel and applying double standards to Israel are absolutely forms of anti-Semitism, and the fact that some self-identified Jews defend people like Khalil means nothing.
Again, Christy offered no proof that Khalil did any of that. Instead, he whined yet again that “Khalil led an organization and was present at an unauthorized occupation of school property that distributed pro-Hamas literature.”
Christy whined further in an April 5 post:
MSNBC is still trying to turn Mahmoud Khalil’s deportation case into something where they frame themselves as Pastor Martin Niemoller warning that the Trump Administration won’t stop with anti-Israel activists. On Saturday’s Velshi, guest host Melissa Murray welcomed Khalil’s attorney, Raher Azmy, to warn, “They will” go after others.
Murray falsely claim, “So, regardless of where you fall on the Gaza question, this is really concerning just generally for the rule of law. This is someone who is exercising First Amendment rights and has been detained and hasn’t had an opportunity to exercise his due process rights to challenge his deportation, his detention.”
The entire reason Azmy is on the show is because Khalil is challenging his deportation, but such basic details aside, Murray then asked, “What does this mean for ordinary citizens, lawful green card holders, and all of us generally?”
[…]Khalil’s beliefs are clearly a threat to the U.S. and its values. It is not as if he is simply disagreeing with the wisdom of parts of U.S. foreign policy that are unique to Trump.
Christy did not explain how, exactly, the beliefs he baselessly ascribes to Khalil are “clearly a threat to the U.S. and its values” — which suggests that he and the MRC want Khalil deported for his speech, something they usually oppose.
UPDATE: An April 12 post by Christy referred to “anti-Semitic Hamas supporter Mahmoud Khalil” but offered no evidence to back that claim up.