By Robert Inlakesh

Under the guise of combating antisemitism, the White House is seeking to curtail free speech on college campuses and in the streets of US cities. 

While the debate has long raged over what truly constitutes “free speech” online, deciding what should be banned or permitted, it was for some time accepted that the US’s First Amendment at least covered what was shared in the offline public sphere. The arrest of Mahmoud Khalil was a declaration from the Trump administration that no criticism of Israel will be tolerated.

Despite being a Green Card holder, Mahmoud Khalil was kidnapped in front of his eight-month pregnant wife, who also happens to be an American citizen. His detention came at the hands of plain-clothed officers belonging to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). While Khalil is not accused of committing any crime, he is threatened with deportation and the revocation of his Green Card.

Making matters even worse, the official social media handles belonging to the White House of X (formerly Twitter) and elsewhere, published an image that read “Shalom Mahmoud”. 

This is the moment Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student and leading activist, was detained by US agents at his home on March 8.

Captured by Khalil’s eight-month-pregnant wife, Noor Abdallah, the agents, who refused to identify themselves, violated legal protocols.… pic.twitter.com/Pw69NNKYq6

— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) March 15, 2025

The ADL and other Zionist groups immediately jumped on the bandwagon in order to demand the deportation of the Palestinian student, adopting the accusation that he had been involved in antisemitic protests and supported Hamas. 

Yet, when the infamous Canary Project, which was set up to dox students and academics, looked into Mahmoud Khalil and wrote a rather extensive profile, they could not find even a single video of the student saying the word Hamas. 

In fact, the Canary Project was so incredibly desperate to find any connection to Hamas that they argued that because the student was in a protest next to someone chanting “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” that this is “Hamas support” because the phrase “has also been employed by Hamas leader Khaled Mashal to call for the replacement of Israel with an Islamic state.”

Mahmoud Khalil: Detained Without Trial – Echoes of US War On Terror

Since taking office, US President Donald Trump has made clear his intentions to crack down on student protesters and universities for allowing what he calls “antisemitism” and “Hamas support”. While Elon Musk’s DOGE has been cutting funding to USAID and anything deemed DEI or “woke”, on February 3, the US Justice Department formed a US taxpayer-funded “Taskforce to Combat Antisemitism”.

The so-called antisemitism task force was formed after Trump signed an Executive Order to Combat Antisemitism on January 30. This Executive Order explicitly states that it is geared at “GOING ON OFFENSE TO ENFORCE LAW AND ORDER AND TO PROTECT CIVIL RIGHTS”. 

“Immediate action will be taken by the Department of Justice to protect law and order, quell pro-Hamas vandalism and intimidation, and investigate and punish anti-Jewish racism in leftist, anti-American colleges and universities” the order stated. It also noted that “forceful and unprecedented steps to marshal all Federal resources to combat the explosion of antisemitism on our campuses”. 

While all other forms of racism are referred to as “woke”, hatred of Jewish people is considered a priority to tackle for the Trump administration. Yet, the kinds of speech that the US government has deemed “antisemitism” appear to be primarily political grievances and criticisms of Israeli policies that are supported by policy makers in Washington. 

A prime example of this comes in the form of the persecution of Mahmoud Khalil, for whom there is no evidence of antisemitic statements on his behalf.

Instead, under the guise of combating antisemitism, the White House is seeking to curtail free speech on college campuses and in the streets of US cities. 

‘Taken for Exercising First Amendment Rights’ – Khalil’s Deportation Ban Extended

The Trump administration has even decided to strip 400 million dollars in federal funding to Columbia University, despite its collaboration with the authorities to expel and even strip degrees from students who chose to protest US support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Donald Trump’s UN ambassador Elise Stefanik was perhaps the foremost elected official to dedicate her time into the pursuit of not only silencing the pro-Palestine student protests, but actively going after Presidents of multiple academic institutions. In a recent address to CPAC, Stefanik bragged about helping to oust five Ivy League University Presidents, remarking “five down and so many to go.”

The toppling of University Presidents, the silencing of professors, the arrests and expulsion of students from their academic institutions constitutes the most severe crackdown on academic freedom in US history. Even during the Cold War, University Presidents were not so brazenly purged by the US government. 

What is even worse is that the Trump administration is attempting to command direct oversight on courses concerning the Middle East and Africa, essentially stripping Universities of their ability to teach views adversarial to American foreign policy.

Furthermore, Washington is also pursuing legal methods to arbitrarily strip tax-exempt status from any organisations that are opposing Israel’s narrative, by deeming them supporters of terrorism, a move that could heavily affect not only Universities and civil society groups, but also media outlets.

As we have seen in the case of Mahmoud Khalil’s detention and the intention of the US government to deport him based solely upon his political views, with no evidence of him committing any crime, the idea of “illegal protests” can be a label applied arbitrarily. 

No proof is needed in order for the Trump administration to claim that an individual, group or organization is “supporting Hamas” or is “antisemitic”, they simply use the label to punish criticism of Israel.

The Israel Lobby in the United States has also helped to push through bills in at least 38 States that prohibit boycotts of Israel, again an unprecedented move that is unparalleled in American history. 

Despite all of this, the Trump administration and its base of supporters still pride themselves on their “America First” motto, while the President himself recently announced “Free speech is back”. However, this assault on free speech is shaping up to make Donald Trump the most anti-free speech President in modern US history.

(The Palestine Chronicle)