CUAD Openly Supports Terrorism. Why Won’t the Media Report It?

There are multiple arguments that are probably worth having when it comes to the arrest and possible deportation of Mamoud Khalil. As I pointed out yesterday, the law seems to say that green cards can be denied/revoked to people who openly endorse terrorism or encourage others to do so. That policy is pretty clearly at odds with the 1st Amendment which applies to green card holders the same as people born here. So there is a debate to be had about whether deporting people for what boils down to overheated speech is right even if the law says it’s legal.

Also, it’s not clear if that’s even the approach the Trump administration is taking in this case. Some reports suggest the administration is arguing that US foreign policy is to discourage antisemitism and that the presence of Khalil violates that, and therefore he can be deported on that basis alone. Again, this may technically be legal but it still arguably amounts to deportation of a green card holder for speech rather than for a crime for which he has been given due process.

All of that strikes me as fair game and the kind of thing people (and courts) can reasonably disagree about. But here’s why this story is really driving me nuts: The media keeps lying about the group Khalid supports and represents.

Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), the group that Khalil belonged to and represented as a negotiator, openly supports terrorism at home and abroad. This is not arguable. The evidence that CUAD is vocally pro-Hamas and pro-terrorism at home and abroad is right there for anyone who bothers to look. This is from the NY Times in October:

The pro-Palestinian group that sparked the student encampment movement at Columbia University in response to the Israel-Hamas war is becoming more hard-line in its rhetoric, openly supporting militant groups fighting Israel and rescinding an apology it made after one of its members said the school was lucky he wasn’t out killing Zionists.

“We support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance,” the group, Columbia University Apartheid Divest, said in its statement revoking the apology.

The group marked the anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by distributing a newspaper with a headline that used Hamas’s name for it: “One Year Since Al-Aqsa Flood, Revolution Until Victory,” it read, over a picture of Hamas fighters breaching the security fence to Israel. And the group posted an essay calling the attack a “moral, military and political victory” and quoting Ismail Haniyeh, the assassinated former political leader of Hamas.

This was around the time that CUAD praised a “bold” terror attack in Tel Aviv which killed a mother shielding an infant. It was good the Times noticed this five months ago but really it was clear that CUAD was pro-terrorism a full year ago. I made a list of some of the evidence, starting with their decision to host a teach-in by Hamas supporters who were in contact with members of at least two designated terrorist groups.

But in the past couple days, since the arrest of Mamoud Khalil, the Times (and every other news outlet) seems to have developed amnesia. Yesterday the paper published a story titled “The U.S. Is Trying to Deport Mahmoud Khalil, a Legal Resident. Here’s What to Know.” Here’s what the story says about CUAD and its relationship to Hamas.

At Columbia last spring, Mr. Khalil assumed a major role in student-led protests on campus against Israel’s war efforts in Gaza. He described his position as a negotiator and spokesman for Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a pro-Palestinian group…

Mr. Rubio reposted a Homeland Security Department statement that accused Mr. Khalil of having “led activities aligned to Hamas.” But officials have not accused him of having any contact with the terrorist group, taking direction from it or providing material support to it.

So in October the Times reported that CUAD had endorsed Hamas and the 10/7 attack on Israel. But five months later it’s just “a pro-Palestinian group.” What happened there? Here’s how an honest report would have phrased it:

At Columbia last spring, Mr. Khalil assumed a major role in student-led protests on campus against Israel’s war efforts in Gaza. He described his position as a negotiator and spokesman for Columbia University Apartheid Divest, an openly pro-Hamas group which has repeatedly said it supports acts of terrorism against Israel including the 10/7 attack.

All of that is undeniably true based on the Times’s own prior reporting. There’s no argument about the facts. And as I said above, including those facts doesn’t automatically get you to Khalil must be deported. But the Times and every other paper is minimizing CUAD’s extremism. Here’s another example from NBC News:

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said his arrest was in coordination with ICE and the State Department in support of Trump’s “executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism” and because Khalil “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.” Trump and his administration did not provide evidence of the allegations against Khalil.

Last spring, he helped organize protests at the university about the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.

Trump said on Truth Social that Khalil’s arrest was the first of many to come. In a post Sunday on X, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the administration would revoke the visas and green cards “of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.”

Two paragraphs mention Khalil’s support for Hamas but NBC’s summary of his activism is that he “helped organize protests at the university about the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.” You literally cannot tell from that sentence which side Khalil was on. An honest media account might read as follows:

Last spring, he helped organize protests at the university about the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. CUAD, the group he represented has openly expressed support for Hamas, hosted teach-ins with Hamas supporters and expressed support for terrorist activities in the US and abroad including the 10/7 attack.

Again, there’s no argument about the facts, but when the facts don’t fit the narrative the media wants to create they just leave them out.

Bottom line: CUAD is pro-Hamas and pro-terrorism. Any article about this topic which doesn’t mention that is intentionally and dishonestly hiding the ball from readers. And at this point, that’s almost every article published on this topic by the mainstream media.

I planned to wrap this up with an X thread about some of CUAD’s other statements of extremism, including support for firebombing attacks at Berkeley. Unfortunately, X is still having problems resulting from a cyberattack that started yesterday and I can’t embed the tweets. So for now, you’ll just have to follow this link if you’re interested.