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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
Here in New York City, Jewish students chained themselves to gates at Columbia University Wednesday in support of Mahmoud Khalil, the former Columbia student protest leader now in an ICE jail in Louisiana. On March 8th, federal agents detained Khalil at his university-owned apartment building, even though he’s a legal permanent resident of the United States. They revoked his green card. I went up to Columbia yesterday and spoke to some of the students at the protest.
PROTESTERS: Release Mahmoud Khalil now! We want justice! You say, “How?” We want justice! You say, “How?” Release Mahmoud Khalil now!
CARLY: Hi. My name is Carly. I’m a Columbia SIPA graduate student, second year. And I’m chained to this gate today as a Jewish student and friend of Mahmoud Khalil’s, demanding answers on how his name got to DHS and which trustee specifically handed over that information. We believe that there is a high chance that our new president Claire Shipman handed over that information. And we, as Jewish students, demand transparency in that process.
AMY GOODMAN: what makes you think that the new president, Shipman, gave over his information?
CARLY: There was a Forward article with that leak. And there has not been transparency from the Columbia administration to Jewish students, when they claim that they are doing all of this to protect Jewish students. We would like to be consulted in that process, instead of being spoken for. You know, as Jewish students and to the Jewish people at large, being political pawns in a game is not a new occurrence, and that’s something that we very much so are here to say, “Hey, you cannot weaponize antisemitism to harm our friends and peers.”
AMY GOODMAN: And talk about being chained. And are you willing to risk arrest or suspension or expulsion from Columbia?
CARLY: Yeah, I mean, just for speaking out for Palestine on Columbia’s campus, you know that you’re risking arrest and expulsion. That is the precedence they have sent, and that is something that we all know at this point. I mean, we are now in a situation where, for many of us, our good friend is in ICE detention. And as Jewish students, we feel we need to do more.
AMY GOODMAN: How did you know Mahmoud Khalil? You said you’re at SIPA. What are you studying there?
CARLY: Yeah, so, I’m a human rights student, and we were classmates. We were classmates and friends. And it’s been a deeply troubling few weeks. And, you know, everyone at SIPA, the students at SIPA, we really are just hoping for his safe return. And for me as a graduate in May, I truly hope we get to walk together at graduation.
AMY GOODMAN: Did he hear that you were out here? And did he send you a message?
CARLY: Yes. So, it has gotten back to Mahmoud that Jewish students are out here chained to the gate, and he did send a message that I read earlier that expressed his gratitude.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell me what he said?
CARLY: Yes, I can pull up the message. I don’t want to misquote him. OK. “The news of students chaining themselves to the Columbia gates has reached Mahmoud in the detention center in Louisiana, where he’s currently being held. He knows what’s happening. He was very emotional when he heard about it, and he wanted to thank you all and let you know he sees you.”
SARAH BORUS: My name is Sarah Borus. I am a senior at Barnard College.
AMY GOODMAN: Why a Jewish action right now?
SARAH BORUS: So, the government, when they abducted Mahmoud, they literally put — Donald Trump put out a post that said, “Shalom, Mahmoud.” They are saying that this is in the name of Jewish safety. But there is a reason that it is four white Jews that were on that fence or that were on that gate, and that’s because we are not the ones that are being targeted by the government. It is Muslim students, Arab students, Palestinian students, immigrant students that are being targeted.
AMY GOODMAN: How do you respond to those who say the protests here are antisemitic?
SARAH BORUS: I have been involved in these protests for my last two years here. The community of Jewish students that I have found is one of the most wonderful in my life. To call these protests antisemitic, honestly, degrades the Jewish religion by making it about a nation-state instead of the actual religion itself.
SHEA: My name is Shea. I’m a junior at Columbia College. I am here for the same reason.
AMY GOODMAN: You’re wearing a keffiyeh and a yarmulke.
SHEA: Yes. That’s standard for me.
AMY GOODMAN: Are you willing to be expelled?
SHEA: If the university decides that that is what should happen to me for doing this, then that is on them. I would love to not be expelled, but I think that my peers would also have loved to not be expelled. I think Mahmoud would love to not be in detention right now. This is — I obviously worked very hard to get here. So did Mahmoud. So did everyone else who has been facing consequences. And, like, while I obviously would prefer to, you know, not get expelled, this is bigger than me. This is about something much more important. And it ultimately is in the hands of the university. If they want to expel me for standing up for my friend, for other students, then that is their choice.
PROTESTERS: ICE off our campus now! ICE off our campus now! We want justice! You say, “How?” We want justice! You say, “How?” Answer our demands now! Answer our demands now!
MARYAM ALWAN: My name is Maryam Alwan. I’m a senior at Columbia. I’m also Palestinian, and I’m friends with Mahmoud. I’m here in solidarity with my Jewish friends, who are in solidarity with all Palestinian students and Palestinians facing genocide in Gaza. We are all here today because we miss our friend, and it’s inconceivable to us that the board of trustees are reported to have handed his name over to the federal government, and the fact that these board of trustees have now taken over the university. Just yesterday, the University Senate at Columbia released an over-300-page report called the Sundial Report, which reveals that the board of trustees has completely endangered both Palestinian and anti-Zionist Jewish students in the name of quashing dissent and cracking down on protests like never before, eroding shared governance, academic freedom. And so this has been a long-standing process of over 1.5 years to get us to the point where we are today, where people are getting kidnapped from their own campuses. And we can’t just sit by and let the federal government do whatever they want to our own university without standing up against it. So, whatever we can do.
AMY GOODMAN: And what does it mean to you that it’s Jewish students who have chained themselves to the gates?
MARYAM ALWAN: It means a lot to me, especially because of all of the rhetoric that surrounds these protests saying that we’re violent or threatening, when, from day one, I was part of Students for Justice in Palestine when it was suspended, and we were working alongside Jewish Voice for Peace from day one. And the media just completely twisted the narrative. So, the fact that my Jewish friends are still to this day fighting, no matter what the personal cost is to them — I’ve seen the way that the university has delegitimized their Jewish identity, put them through trials, saying that they’re antisemitic, when they are proud Jews, and they’ve taught me so much about Judaism. So it just means a lot to see, like, the solidarity between us even almost two years later now.
AHARON DARDIK: My name’s Aharon Dardik. I’m a junior here at Columbia. And we’re here to protest the trustees putting students in danger and not taking accountability.
AMY GOODMAN: Why the chains on your wrists?
AHARON DARDIK: We, as Jewish students, chained ourselves earlier today to a gate on campus, and we said that we weren’t going to leave until the university named who it was amongst the trustees who collaborated with the fascist Trump administration to detain our classmate, Mahmoud Khalil, and try and deport him.
AMY GOODMAN: Where are you originally from?
AHARON DARDIK: I’m originally from California, but my family moved to Israel-Palestine.
AMY GOODMAN: And being from Israel-Palestine, your thoughts on what’s happening there?
AHARON DARDIK: There’s never a justification for killing innocent civilians and for war crimes and genocide that’s being committed now. And I know many, many other people there who are leftist Israeli activists who are doing their best to end the occupation, to end the war and the genocide and to end Israeli apartheid, but they need more support from the international community, which currently sees supporting Israel as synonymous with supporting the fascist Israeli government that’s perpetrating this genocide, that’s continuing the occupation.
AMY GOODMAN: Voices from a protest Wednesday when Jewish students at Columbia University chained themselves to university gates in support of Mahmoud Khalil, the former Columbia student protest leader now detained by ICE in a Louisiana jail. Students continued their action into the early hours of this morning through the rain, even after Columbia security and New York police arrived on the scene to cut the chains and forcibly remove protesters. Special thanks to Laura Bustillos.
