Since the Saturday arrest of Columbia University Apartheid Divest leading activist Mahmoud Khalil, supporters have raised the banner of freedom of speech to argue against and protest his detention and the revocation of his green card.
Yet the principle being waved in Khalil's defense is not only one that CUAD and its supporters do not believe in, it was not even Khalil's expression or beliefs that led to law enforcement action against him, but his organization's advocacy of terrorism, intimidation of students and staff, vandalism, and campus disruptions.
Making Khalil into a martyr for free speech is not about defending a principle; it is part of the same motte and bailey tactics that anti-Israel activists employ whenever they face the repercussions of their radical actions.
The motte and bailey doctrine, coined by philosopher Nicholas Shackel, compares dishonest argumentation to holding a castle. One occupies the controversial opinion of the comfortable bailey grounds when facing little or no resistance to ones' ideas.
When this position cannot be defended, the occupants retreat to the uncomfortable but easier to defend philosophical citadel of the motte. Once the attacks cease, the castle denizens return to the bailey to advance what they believed all along.
The post-October 7 Massacre protest movement has employed this stratagem each time they have fallen under assault, and the US government's crackdown on Khalil is no exception. Now that CUAD is under attack, its supporters have retreated to the Motte of free speech and due process because they understand that these are natural fortifications in the US political landscape.
Reuters reported on Thursday that Khalil's legal team said that the arrest was in retaliation for his advocacy against Israel for its military operation in Gaza, and his constitutionally protected free speech rights were being violated.
Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib signed a joint letter on Tuesday urging Khalil's release, explaining that President Donald Trump's administration was threatening to "shred our constitutional rights to free speech and due process."
At protests supporting Khalil the same day, a representative of Palestinian Youth Movement NYC said in an Instagram video that "Mahmoud was illegally abducted by DHS agents, he is being held in ICE detention and this is a clear attempt on the part of the Trump administration to suppress the movement for Palestine and strip us of our rights of speech and due process."
Yet the US federal government and law enforcement agencies have emphasized that they have not sought Khalil's deportation because of simply attending a protest or advocating against Israeli military operations, but according to the DHS, because "Khalil led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization."
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt explained during a Tuesday press release that under the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Secretary of State can revoke green cards or visas for those who are adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests of the country.
Indeed, one provision of the act makes a foreigner who “endorses or espouses terrorist activity or persuades others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity or support a terroristorganization” ineligible for a visa.
"Mahmoud Khalil was an individual who was given the privilege of coming to this country to study at one of our nation's finest universities and colleges," said Leavitt.
"He took advantage of that opportunity, of that privilege by siding with terrorists, Hamas terrorists who have killed innocent men, women and children. This is an individual who organized group protests that not only disrupted college campus classes and harassed Jewish American students and made them feel unsafe on their own college campus, but also distributed pro-Hamas propaganda, flyers with the logo of Hamas."
When Khalil felt secure, he roamed the Bailey, leading CUAD to use force and threats to push the administration into adopting his policies and advocating for and instructing on political violence as a means to destroy Israel or the United States.
Forefront of anti-Israel activities
CUAD was at the forefront of anti-Israel activities in New York City that went well beyond the limits of peaceful expression in an attempt to coerce universities and colleges to adopt anti-Israel policies.
The activists occupied and refused to leave campus property in April, creating a threatening environment for students. During these protests, students with Israeli and American flags were told that they would be Hamas's next targets and told to "go back to Poland."
The activist group backed a member to say that Zionists shouldn't live and suggested that he was inclined to kill them himself. These are just a few incidents in which Jewish students felt threatened and unwelcome in an institution they paid to study.
At the end of April, activists stormed Hamilton Hall, according to then-Columbia President Minouche Shafik, breaking doors, damaging property, and mistreating public safety officers and maintenance staff. According to the NYPD, when the occupation was finally cleared, they found gas masks, helmets, goggles, hammers, knives, and a book on terrorism.
CUAD continued to organize into 2025, starting off the recent semester by entering an Israel history course on January 21 and disrupting the class with a speech and handing out flyers that depicted a star of David being crushed under a boot.
When two Barnard College students were expelled for the incident, Khalil's CUAD led two different occupations of the institution's buildings to pressure the administration into reversing their disciplinary decisions. A security guard was hospitalized in a February 26 incident. According to the college, in their wake, the group has left tens of thousands of dollars in damages due to their vandalism.
The support of terrorism by Khalil's organization isn't just relegated to a few flyers seen by Leavitt- a review of CUAD essays and social media by The Jerusalem Post shows how they have openly advocated for political violence as a method and supported alleged domestic terrorists.
“We support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance,” CUAD said in an October 8 Instagram post.
The group has praised the October 7 Massacre as the "crowning achievement" of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, one of the many terrorists from Hezbollah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine they have extolled as heroes. Khalil's group indoctrinated their members with official terrorist documents, in one reading group studying the PFLP’s Strategy for the Liberation of Palestine.
The congresspeople, attorneys, and activists supporting Khalil are not arguing on the merits of vandalism, championing Hamas, or the coercive intimidation of students and staff because they know that this bailey is impossible to defend. Consequently, they have retreated to the motte as they have many times before.
When a third Barnard student was expelled for their role in the Hamilton Hall occupation, the group didn't argue the legitimacy of smashing windows, but in a March 3 Instagram post appealed that the process was unfair because they had been held under interim suspension for so long, and that it was "disparate institution repression."
When arrests were made on March 5 for occupying and disrupting Barnard's Milstein Center, CUAD didn't explain how holding buildings hostage was a right but appealed to the progressive history of the college and complained about using police force for vacating people who were just protesting.
When the two history class disruptors were first expelled, CUAD said on social media on February 25 that it was the first expulsion for political protest since 1968, ignoring that it was not the voicing of dissent and advocacy that led to the punishments.
One student facing disciplinary action for their actions at the encampments said, according to a CUAD essay, that the faculty should be siding for them "in the struggle for Palestinian liberation and academic freedom" asking if the institution was still "a safe haven for learning and growth, critical thinking, and freedom of thought and expression."
The anti-Israel activist motte and bailey has played out time and again.
When five anti-Israel University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee organizations were temporarily suspended from campus for their threatening July statements to Jewish groups, they complained about lack of due process and creating a climate of suppression "incongruent" with the university's mission of free exchange of ideas and transparency of decision making.
When Students Allied for Freedom and Equality was suspended in February from the University of Michigan for actions that included harassing UMich Regent Sarah Hubbard at her home in May, the group held a meeting to discuss how to fight against “repression of pro-Palestine speech and activism.”
Most recently, when SJP Cornell was threatened with suspension for trying to shut down a panel about peace on Monday, they complained that they were silencing "conscientious objectors" for their attempts to silence others.
The Cornell example is just one of many that also shows how weak the anti-Israel motte truly is, as their hypocrisy has undermined the foundations of the argument.
One of CUAD's five demands has always been to cut all academic ties between Columbia and Israeli institutions, stopping the free exchange of ideas. The recent events began with preventing a professor from teaching a class because they disagreed with the contents.
They regularly protest guest speakers, as they did to former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on March 4, issuing a heckler's veto on their freedom of speech.
Even when it comes to due process, they have attacked every disciplinary action against them as unfair or a sham, pretending that if only the university adopted the process they proposed at their recent Barnard protests, then they would accept the results.
The group has participated in teach-ins calling for the abolition of prisons and policing. When good Samaritan Daniel Penny was acquitted for the death of Jordan Neely before a court of law, the due process didn't prevent them from complaining that it was a lynching and promising liberation from such oppressive rule.
"On December 9, 2024, Daniel Penny was found not guilty of Jordan Neely’s murder, proving again that the legal system cannot deliver justice, only the people can," CUAD wrote on January 22.
The only process that CUAD supports is its own and only appeals to the due process of the state it wishes to overthrow because it is weak. In echoing Frank Herbert's Children of Dune, when they are weaker than you, they ask for due process and freedom of speech because that is according to America's principles, but when they are stronger than you, they take these away with an angry protesting mob because that is according to their principles.
Don't be fooled by the anti-Israel motte and bailey. They are part of the same defensive system held by a dishonest and radical actor that will not stop until they win. Don't stop at the bailey – seize the motte.
