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Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reportedly claimed in a memo that pro-Palestine activists protesting Israel’s genocide in Gaza are undermining the U.S.’s supposed goal of a “peaceful” end to the violence, new reporting finds, providing a glimpse into the paradoxical reasoning being employed by the White House to justify its erosion of free speech rights.
The memo was prepared to supposedly justify the abduction of Columbia University activist and Palestinian Mohsen Mahdawi, and was cited by immigration officials for his arrest on Monday, The New York Times reports. Mahdawi’s arrest has caused an uproar among advocates for Palestinian rights, who say it is clear that the administration is deepening the “Palestine exception” by escalating tactics against those exercising free speech rights to speak out against Israel’s extermination campaign.
According to the Times, the memo claims that Mahdawi is harming the U.S.’s supposed goal, as outlined by President Donald Trump in an executive order, of “combating antisemitism” worldwide — which critics say is a euphemism for plans to target and punish pro-Palestine activists.
The memo dubiously claims that such activism by Mahdawi and others somehow strengthens antisemitic sentiment in the Middle East and therefore sets back the U.S.’s objective of “peacefully” bringing an end to violence in Gaza. As such, the administration’s reasoning goes, the green card holder must be deported to the occupied West Bank, which he has said is akin to a death sentence because of Israel’s slaughter and forced displacement of Palestinians there.
The administration’s reasoning is absurd on its face for numerous reasons.
First, as many Jewish people and experts on racism have noted, the Trump administration is not interested in combating true instances of antisemitism, with Trump and his top allies like Elon Musk repeatedly embracing neo-Nazis and spouting antisemitic rhetoric. Many Jewish people say, in fact, that the administration is making it more dangerous for Jewish individuals in the U.S. who have advocated for Palestinian rights.
Moreover, the U.S. is also clearly not interested in “peace” in the Middle East or in Gaza. Trump and his advisers have repeatedly stoked war with Iran, which would unleash violence across the Middle East, while escalating the U.S.’s slaughter in Yemen.
Trump’s plans for Gaza are anything but peaceful for Palestinians, with the president pushing his plan for the ethnic cleansing of every Palestinian in Gaza. This plan evidently includes sending Israel whatever weapons it needs to continue its genocide, with Israel embarking on one of the most deadly phases of the genocide yet in recent weeks with uncritical support from the U.S.
Further, there is no evidence that Mahdawi or any other targeted campus activists like Mahmoud Khalil or Rumeysa Öztürk have harbored antisemitic sentiments — in fact, much the opposite, with many Jewish students who have interacted with Mahdawi saying that the student repeatedly denounced antisemitism both during and outside of the pro-Palestine protests at Columbia last spring.
As reported by Drop Site, students said he even sought to meet with Zionists in order to try to bridge the gap between their beliefs and form an understanding — despite the fact that he has suffered great personal losses at the hands of Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank.
As a matter of common sense, even if Mahdawi were so instrumental in furthering antisemitic sentiment in the Middle East as the administration has seemingly claimed, it wouldn’t make sense to remove him from the U.S. and send him to the heart of where officials are supposedly working to tamp down antisemitism.
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