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Sam's avatar
Mar 13Edited

I agree with everything you’re saying about how horrible his arrest and possible deportation are, but I think your overstating the case about how there no evidence he supports Hamas. The group he was a leader in, CUAD, has unambiguously posted in support of Hamas many times. That’s not a guarantee of his personal beliefs, it may be that he is just protesting Israel and accepts a wide tent because of how important that is to him. But I do feel for intellectual honesty it should be mentioned and complicated that narrative a bit.

EDIT: Also, I do think many pro-Israel people call all pro-Palestinian supporters pro-Hamas. I’ve been called that many times, so I get the impulse to just ignore the accusations.

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Donna Smirniotopoulos's avatar

As a practical matter, people who have green cards and whose wives are very, very pregnant are poorly served carrying water for terrorists. There is ample evidence Khalil is a Hamas supporter, based on statements from his group and literature he has distributed. It bears mentioning that Hamas has the support of 80% of the Gazan civilian population. The Bibas family was kidnapped by Palestinians civilians, not Hamas. They were murdered in Gaza, possibly at the hands of civilians. No telling who in Gaza beat and strangled the Bibas children, but the likelihood that many people were involved is quite high. When Americans take care to point out that they support Palestinians v. Hamas, they need to devote some time and care to what exactly that means. Whether or not there is a legal basis to Khalil's arrest is less worrisome for me--the courts will sort this out and are already engaged in this debate, his deportation having been stayed--than the left's nearly unequivocal support of these protests and Khalil in particular. He's a vile human being. And there is nothing wrong with tailoring our immigration policies to favor those who share our values and who love our country. Khalil may have a green card, but should he be given the privilege of full citizenship while Indians who are needed for their tech skills, for example, are denied under the diversity lottery? It's very hard to support Palestinians in Gaza when as a population their support for the destruction of Israel and the extermination of the Jews is near universal. There's a sizeable Palestinian majority in the Hashemite Dynasty of Jordan. Perhaps the Palestinians currently living in Gaza, Judea and Sameria should go there.

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