[UNCUT CONVERSATION] Mahmoud Khalil’s Warning: American Anti-Fascists are Failing the Palestine Test

Synopsis:  Mahmoud Khalil examines why the question of Palestine is a test for U.S. democracy. 

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Description: Mahmoud Khalil was coming home from an Iftar dinner with his pregnant wife on March 8, 2025 when he was detained without a warrant and transported 1,500 miles to a Louisiana detention camp. A negotiator for the 2024 pro-Palestine student protests at Columbia University, Khalil was a legal permanent resident who’d committed no violence or crime; his abduction shocked the world. The Trump administration was seeking to expel Khalil, not for his acts, but for his otherwise legal “beliefs, statements and associations” which Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote in short letter, would “compromise a compelling US foreign policy interest.” A New Jersey federal judge threw out that case and Khalil was released after 104 days in detention, but the backlash keeps on coming. In this courageous conversation, Mahmoud Khalil joins Laura Flanders to discuss the night of his terrifying detainment, the “Palestinian Exception” and the case brought against him by the Trump administration. They are alleging errors on his green card application and have ordered Khalil to be deported — possibly to Algeria or Syria where his life would be under threat. Despite the risks of deportation, Mahmoud Khalil continues to speak out, and he and his legal team have filed a civil rights lawsuit with the U.S. District Court of New Jersey against the Trump administration to challenge his arrest and detention by ICE. Join Khalil and Flanders as they ask why the question of Palestine is a test for U.S. democracy — and one we are failing.

“. . . [The Trump administration is] using Palestine. They are using the pretext of antisemitism and combating antisemitism to go after us because they know that this is the weakness of the Democratic party. When they go to the universities, they start with combating antisemitism, but then the second ask would be to abolish all DEI programs, to sanitize the history on slavery and the inception of America. And the list goes on and on and on.” - Mahmoud Khalil

“People mistakenly think that what's happening is far from their doors. They think that this would never happen to them, because of their social status, because of their ethnicity or any of that. But what's happening around us should alarm us . . . It's not about that the U.S. is becoming authoritarian. It is authoritarianism now.” - Mahmoud Khalil

Guest:  Mahmoud Khalil, Human Rights Advocate

UPDATE - since this interview was recorded-  “The recent decision by a federal court in Massachusetts in the AAUP v. Rubio case confirms what Mahmoud has maintained all along: that Trump administration officials have acted in concert to suppress and silence anti-genocide, pro-Palestinian speech, in violation of the First Amendment. We look forward to the remedies that court will order and to pursuing Mahmoud’s own separate and ongoing federal court challenge to this unconstitutional policy.”  -Ramzi Kassem, co-director of CLEAR, and one of the lawyers representing Mahmoud Khalil.

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Watch the special report on YouTube; PBS World Channel September 21st, and on over 300 public stations across the country (check your listings, or search here via zipcode). Listen: Episode airing on community radio September 24th  (check here to see if your station is airing the show) & available as a podcast.

Full Episode Notes are located HERE.

Music Credit:  'Thrum of Soil' by Bluedot Sessions, and original sound design by Jeannie Hopper

RESOURCES:

Related Laura Flanders Show Episodes:

• Behind the Barricades at Columbia University: “The Encampments” for Gaza- Watch / Listen:  Episode and Uncut Conversation

• Israel, Hamas & Gaza: UN Insider Craig Mokhiber Exposes Genocide, Apartheid & Human Rights Failures- Watch / Listen:  Episode and Uncut Conversation

• Organizing for Gaza Ceasefire Through Policy & Protest: Meet JVP & NY Assemblymember Mamdani- Watch / Listen:  Episode and Uncut Conversation

•  Israel-Palestine News - YouTube Playlist  

Related Articles and Resources:

•  Federal judge rules Trump unconstitutionally targeted Gaza war protesters for deportation, by Michael Casey, Associated Press, PBS

• What is Better US, the group pushing to deport pro-Palestinain students? By Al Jazeera Staff, March 25, 2025, Al Jazeera

• Google Secretly Handed ICE Data About Pro-Palestine Student Activist, by Shawn Musgrave, September 16, 2025, The Intercept

• UC Berkeley Gives Trump Administration 160 Names in Antisemitism Investigation, by Brian Krans, September 12, 2025, KQED

• Block the Bombs Act To Israel

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