Legal Gains for Anti-Israel Protesters

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — They escaped justice and accountability once again. Those critics of Israel can apparently thank federal and state authorities for tripping up somehow.

Just this past week, a Columbia University anthropology professor described student protest as nonviolent protest and squarely political speech. She distorted the nature of the protests in greater detail in a student newspaper article published four months ago.

Mahmoud Khalid – a former student leader at Columbia threatened with deportation – was not only released from detention for his protest activity but is now poised to sue President Trump for $20 million for violating his civil rights.

For seven pro-Palestinian activists at the University of Michigan, state Attorney General Dana Nessel dropped all charges that they tossed tables and chairs at police, refused to disperse and created encampments described as fire hazards.

Many students targeted for deportation or criminal charges were not exactly engaging in nonviolent protest. Evidence of illegal acts has stared authorities starkly in the face for years and worsened after terrorists massacred 1,200 Jews in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.  Illegal actions abounded during the nationwide campus demonstrations in April and May 2024.

During a news conference held in March by Columbia and Barnard faculty, anthropology professor Nadia Abu El-Haj referred to university affiliates and “agitators outside the university” who have been “slandering Palestinians and pro-Palestinian protesters as antisemites,” and even  providing material support for terrorism, with absolutely no evidence to back that charge up.

 “The narratives you have promoted have demonized and increasingly helped to criminalize simply being Palestinian in this country,” she added, as quoted by The Columbia Daily Spectator, a student newspaper.

They broke the law by setting up encampments on campus that were banned by the university. They committed criminal offenses whenever they harassed Jewish students. How can it not be a crime to assault two janitors, and then seize and occupy Columbia’s Hamilton Hall? Not to mention off-campus blockades of roads and bridges.

Abu El-Haj testified in federal court on Wednesday that these incidents were nonviolent protest and squarely political, according to The New York Times and other media sources. Afterwards, Immigration and Customs Enforcement official Peter Hatch acknowledged in testimony that his office studied pro-Israel websites to help learn of foreign student activists for investigation and possible deportation.

Academic associations suing the Trump administration accused it of detaining critics of Israel like Khalil to chill political speech at odds with President Trump’s agenda.

The White House has sought to deport foreigners with student visas and other credentials who support Hamas, the terrorist group in Gaza, and other terrorist organizations.  However, Khalid is a permanent resident. That strategy may work, but government agents bypassed the legal system by detaining Khalid and others on orders from the administration.

Trump has been under fire for denying them due process. By all means, the government should go through the courts instead of detaining or expelling anyone on its own. Exercising their free speech rights cannot be sufficient reason to deport anyone.

Perhaps Trump could justify some expulsions by proving that the protesters committed crimes or acts against the government. Possibly they will find that some foreign students have been prosecuted by local authorities for occupying a campus room or building or participating in the installation of illegal encampments. That would take time, work and a skilled investigative effort.

How might Khalil fit into this process? He has been described as a student leader, and he acknowledged in a recent documentary that he led negotiations – on behalf of the encampments – with Columbia to disinvest from Israeli companies, according to The Forward, a Jewish website.

He was not only participating in the encampments, he was leading the movement. Those encampments were illegal and everyone involved with it was vulnerable to prosecution, especially their so-called negotiators.

Trump’s rush to expel Khalil and other foreign students exploded in his face. Khalil was seized by federal agents on March 8 in upper Manhattan and was sent to a detention center in Louisiana. He was released from federal custody on June 20 after Federal Judge Michael Farbiarz ordered it.

“There is at least something to the underlying claim that there is an effort to use the immigration charge here to punish Mr. Khalil,” the judge said. “And of course that would be unconstitutional.”

What should have been a law-and-order issue morphed into a free speech drive, and Khalil is now a civil rights hero.

Not only that, but Khalil’s lawyers filed a $20 million claim of damages against the administration, alleging that he was falsely imprisoned, maliciously prosecuted and smeared as an antisemite, the Associated Press reports. The filing is a precursor to a lawsuit under the Federal Tort Claims Act.

Meanwhile, the Michigan episode was cloaked in mystery with political overtones when Nessel, the state Attorney General, dropped charges in May against seven pro-Palestinian protesters who faced misdemeanor charges of trespassing as well as felony charges of resisting and obstructing police, according to The Detroit Free Press.

Nessel serves the public in a state where partisan politics in presidential and other state-level elections are especially toxic. Trump narrowly took Michigan partly because Arab-Americans in and around Dearborn refused to vote for either major-party candidate. They blamed President Biden for failing to pressure Israel from bombing Gaza, and Vice President Kamala Harris suffered for it as the Democratic standard-bearer for president last year.

Nessel is also Jewish, which evidently spurred accusations of bias. As Attorney General, she is positioned to run for the more prominent positions of senator or governor, and any controversy could spill over into other contests which could damage Democratic candidates.

The Free Press reports that Nessel last September compounded charges against the seven defendants from trespassing to felony charges for resisting and obstructing police because they used “physical force to counter” police officers who were trying to clear them from an encampment that they had installed; they could be sentenced to up to two years in prison.

Critics subsequently accused Nessel of bias, calling for her recusal. While announcing she was dropping the charges, she issued a statement saying, “We did so based on the evidence and facts of the case,” she said.

Nessel criticized Ann Arbor District Judge Cedric Simpson for the slow pace of the case, saying there’d been “months and months” of court hearings without a ruling on whether there was enough evidence to send the case to circuit court for trial.

“Baseless and absurd allegations of bias have only furthered this divide,” she continued. “The motion for recusal has been a diversionary tactic which has only served to further delay the proceedings.”

Why would these conditions influence any prosecutor? If the accusation is trumped up, why didn’t she discount it and proceed with the prosecution?

A second reason is no less convincing – a letter submitted by the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor on May 2 that reads, “The notion that AG Nessel is biased against Muslims and Americans of Arab descent is unfounded and deeply offensive. Nessel has a strong history of uplifting those in both the Muslim and Arab American communities.”

Nessel stated, “We have learned that a public statement in support of my office from a local nonprofit has been directly communicated to the court. The impropriety of this action has led us to the difficult decision to drop these charges.”

What impropriety? Did Nessel ask Federation to send it? Did Democrats involved with Federation have it sent? Nessel would not respond to follow-up questions from the newspaper.

The only explanation that makes sense is a political motive to return to the good graces of the Arab-American community. That would compromise the legal system.

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Bruce S. Ticker is a Philadelphia-based columnist.