Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD)

As a sign of just how bad things have gotten at Columbia University, there is a coalition of 94 off-the-wall student groups making up the Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD). Among the many silly organizations of identity-centered victims, you will most prominently find Students for Justice in Palestine (an arm of Hamas) and Jewish Voice for Peace, a deceptively named group who, in fact, are soulmates of SJP.

It should be noted at the outset that the Syrian student currently in ICE custody, Mahmoud Khalil, is a leading member of CUAD.

In November 2023, not long after the infamous October 7 attacks against innocent Israelis, mostly civilians, CUAD posted a piece in the campus newspaper, Columbia Spectator, outlining their goals-which go far beyond the Palestinian issue. 

 ”Our coalition was reactivated in October 2023 in response to the overwhelming support for Palestinian freedom from students on Columbia’s campus.” 

(October 8, I would bet.)

In August 2024, Campus Reform ran a piece quoting CUAD’s description of their goals in an Instagram post  (which has apparently since been deleted). 

”We are Westerners fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization. We stand in full solidarity with every movement for liberation in the Global South. Our Intifada is an internationalist one-we are fighting for nothing less than the liberation of all people. We reject every genocidal, eugenicist regime that seeks to undermine the personhood of the colonized.” 

”As the fascism ingrained in the American consciousness becomes ever more explicit and irrefutable, we seek community and instruction from militants in the Global South, who have been on the frontlines in the fight against tyranny and domination which undergird the imperialist world order.”

Returning to the subject of Mahmoud Khalil, he is a Syrian national and not a US citizen. I would argue he is also not a “Westerner”, but that is another issue. Knowing the stated goals of CUAD and knowing that he is a leading member of CUAD and has allegedly engaged in pro-Hamas activity at Columbia, including allegedly handing out  Hamas propaganda pamphlets or leaflets, is it not reasonable to deport this man?