We Can’t Talk Anymore Because Our Moral Visions Are So Far Apart

Mahmoud Khalil’s case is, as Dan Linnaeus explains in the X post linked below, something of a dividing line in how people think about citizenship, the right to stay in a Western country, the limits of tolerance we must have for hatred from noncitizens, and most of all over whether we should see non-Westerners as everywhere and always victims, and Westerners as oppressors who deserve whatever we get. 

The American left is appalled that Khalil is being deported for his arguably illegal, and certainly anti-American and antisemitic “activist” activities while a student at Columbia University. He helped organize and lead protests that led to assaults, property damage, harassment of Jewish students, and drove Jews off campus out of justifiable fear.

Liberals see Khalil as a victim of political persecution, and just as they believe that the students who were breaking the law, destroying things, harassing fellow students and other members of the Columbia community, and making their hatred of Jews known to all are brave social justice warriors, they see Khalil as a martyr and political prisoner. 

America already went through long periods of imported sectarian violence. The Orange and Green riots, Haymarket, the anarchist wave around McKinley’s assassination, which produced the Immigration Act of 1903 barring anarchists. The country has historically drawn a line at… https://t.co/rUHwfFLYWt

— dan linnaeus (@DanLinnaeus) April 30, 2026

…

NYMag doesn’t grasp how deeply wrong this article is because it’s trapped in its own ideological bubble, one that treats pro-Palestine campus activism as inherently righteous “resistance,” frames any immigration enforcement under Trump as authoritarian persecution, and systematically downplays or denies the antisemitism, disruption, and foreign policy problems tied to these protests. 

While Khalil waxes poetic about the life he misses, the piece never lays out his role as the lead negotiator for Columbia University Apartheid Divest during the 2024-2025 encampments and Hamilton Hall occupation. These weren’t peaceful “anti-war” vigils. 

Columbia University’s own Antisemitism Task Force documented widespread harassment. Jewish students faced spitting, slurs, ostracism, exclusion from spaces, and an intense climate of intimidation and violent confrontation. Khalil was filmed ranting aggressively at pro-Israel tables, with more incidents reported by eyewitnesses than caught on camera.

Conservatives see a criminal alien who has no right to be here, and hence deserves no sympathy because he broke the law, violated the terms of his conditional permit to be here, and we are well pleased that he is being kicked out. 

This divide is not especially American, and not a result of Trump derangement syndrome, either. It is just as big in Europe, where the vast majority of sex crimes and terrorism are committed by aliens from violent parts of the world. Liberals don’t see this as a problem and are repelled by the idea that Westerners would kick criminal aliens out of their countries. 

Suleiman was jailed for nine years in 2008 for grievous bodily harm over the stabbings, with at least half to be served in custody

PC Neil Sampson was responding to a 999 knife attack call in Swindon when he was assaulted. As he and his police dog, Anya, chased the suspect, the… pic.twitter.com/0ZYWQkaGcR

— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) April 30, 2026

Suleiman was jailed for nine years in 2008 for grievous bodily harm over the stabbings, with at least half to be served in custody

PC Neil Sampson was responding to a 999 knife attack call in Swindon when he was assaulted. As he and his police dog, Anya, chased the suspect, the man turned and stabbed him repeatedly with a suspected bread knife, also stabbing the dog in the chest as she tried to protect him

A second officer was also injured 

It was today revealed that Suleiman had been referred to Prevent in 2020, but the case had been closed later that year

There are countless examples of this phenomenon, but this recent one will do to make my point. 

Essa Suleiman is a Somali refugee who was admitted in the early 2000s and has not been what one might call a model citizen. And yes, somewhere along the way during his journey of stabbing policemen and now Jews in Britain, he managed to become a citizen, despite having attacked two policemen with a knife and having been incarcerated for that crime. 

This week, he went on a stabbing spree, puncturing the lung of one Jewish man and slashing the throat, thankfully non-fatally, of another. He was living in state-supported, monitored housing at the time, getting mental health support tied to his khat addiction. 

So a Somali Islamist terrorist came to the UK and stabbed two police officers, and they were like, “Yep, make him a citizen.” https://t.co/AGO94uPMUy

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) May 1, 2026

He had quite the career as a Somali refugee, and even after he had stabbed the policemen, he wound up working as a security guard at a school. He was a khat addict, a man with known violent tendencies, and a vicious antisemite. 

His behavior after release from prison was so worrying that he had been reported to Prevent, the government’s anti-terrorism task force that monitors dangerous extremists. He was hardly the first known wolf to have been referred to Prevent, cleared of suspicions, and who went on to commit terrorist acts. 

The Southport stabbings of the young girls at a Taylor Swift dance party were also committed by a terrorist who had been referred to Prevent, but because he was an Islamist and therefore presumptively a victim and not a victimizer, he was allowed to roam free and commit an atrocity. 

How did Essa Suleiman end up as a security guard at a Swindon primary school with a prior violence record?

The day before stabbing police & a dog in 2008, he self-admitted to hospital on a khat relapse.

Prevent referred in 2020… case closed.

Now accused of antisemitic terror… pic.twitter.com/BfxTXEZPzr

— GB Common Sense (@RuralCatDef) April 30, 2026

How did Essa Suleiman end up as a security guard at a Swindon primary school with a prior violence record?

The day before stabbing police & a dog in 2008, he self-admitted to hospital on a khat relapse.

Prevent referred in 2020… case closed.

Now accused of antisemitic terror in Golders Green.

How many times do authorities need to miss this? Serious answers needed.

This presumption of victimhood on the part of foreign nationals who are clearly dangerous is now standard for left-leaning victimhood mongers. If you are an alien, and especially an illegal alien who absolutely despises Western culture, you are automatically considered presumptively victimized. 

NEW: I’m told by federal sources that a Dominican illegal alien with a deportation order & an Interpol Red Notice arrest warrant for murder in his home county was ordered released from ICE custody on Tuesday by Rhode Island federal judge Melissa DuBose (Biden appointee). I’m told… pic.twitter.com/ndHma0Mu2Z

— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) April 30, 2026

NEW: I’m told by federal sources that a Dominican illegal alien with a deportation order & an Interpol Red Notice arrest warrant for murder in his home county was ordered released from ICE custody on Tuesday by Rhode Island federal judge Melissa DuBose (Biden appointee). I’m told that international fugitive Bryan Rafael Gomez was arrested by ICE Boston in Worcester, MA on April 4th, and had been detained in a facility in Rhode Island where he was issued a deportation order on April 28th by an immigration judge. 

On Tuesday, I’m told Judge DuBose ordered Gomez be released from ICE custody on the grounds of “continuous unlawful detention”, while ICE argued that Gomez was subject to mandatory detention due to having an international arrest warrant for homicide. 

I’m told Gomez was released, is now roaming freely again, and ICE can’t rearrest him due to Judge DuBose’s order. He was caught and released at the southern border by the Biden administration in 2022.

It seems that there is literally nothing you can do that is not forgiven by liberals. In Boston, illegal alien sex predators are routinely escorted out of jail before the immigration authorities can pick them up and deport them. In Minnesota during the ICE surge, judges would routinely release known criminal aliens with criminal backgrounds, on the belief that ICE was in the wrong for arresting them. 

Human traffickers are suddenly “our neighbors” and vital to the “fabric of our community.” 

“GET OVER IT!”

Georgetown Professor @JonathanACBrown tells British female victims of MUSLIM rape gangs to “get over it”.

This is the Alwaleed bin Talal Chair of Islamic Civilization and a Muslim rape apologist.

👉Share now to let @Georgetown know who they’re employing. pic.twitter.com/LEuu1WBciw

— Shirion Collective (@ShirionOrg) April 9, 2026

No, actually, they are not. It is not true, as we are now lectured, that Somalis built Minnesota. Twenty-five years ago, there were hardly any in the entire country, and there are still only a couple of hundred thousand who have managed to scam tens of billions of dollars from taxpayers. They have turned entire neighborhoods into no-go zones. 

This sounded so outrageous that I worried it was fake. I fact checked.

IT IS REAL. Let that sink in. IT IS REAL. The prosecutors struck an insane plea bargain, and the judge followed it, over the objections of the victims’ parents! Could you imagine if the rape victims were… https://t.co/ghOcoSsdFN

— Jim Walden (@jimfornyc) March 13, 2026

This sounded so outrageous that I worried it was fake. I fact checked. 

IT IS REAL. Let that sink in. IT IS REAL. The prosecutors struck an insane plea bargain, and the judge followed it, over the objections of the victims’ parents!  Could you imagine if the rape victims were your daughters?  

How can this happen? Oh, yes, it’s Minnesota. Strike that off my travel bucket list. I struck Dearborn off yesterday.

In Europe, rapists and murderers, should they get convicted and punished, are routinely not deported after their sentences are served because it is considered a violation of their human rights. 

Let that sink in. You can enter a country illegally, commit horrific crimes, serve little jail time, and then be released back into the public because their home country is not safe for them. 

“Don’t send that rapist back home! It is cruel!” Oh FFS. Why is that country so bad? Because it is filled with people like him!

I don’t see a way to bridge this divide. We don’t speak the same moral language.