The families of Israeli hostages are suing Mahmoud Khalil and other Columbia University protest organizers for allegedly running Hamas’ “propaganda arm” on campus.
The lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York on Monday, sues Khalil, a former Columbia graduate student who was the principal leader of Columbia University Apartheid Divest and a spokesman for the so-called “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” as well as Nerdeen Kiswani, the co-founder and chair of Within Our Lifetime; Maryam Alwan, a representative for Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine; and Cameron Jones, a representative for Columbia-Barnard Jewish Voice For Peace.
“Defendants in this case are Hamas’ propaganda arm in New York City and on the Columbia University campus,” the lawsuit says. “We know this because they advertise themselves as such. Their self-described acts in furtherance of their goals to assist Hamas have included terrorizing and assaulting Jewish students, unlawfully taking over and damaging public property and university property on Columbia’s campus, and physically assaulting Columbia University employees.”
The complaint says the defendants “act behind veiled scarves and largely seek to be anonymous individually, yet seek to intimidate as a group.”
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“This case will pull down those scarves and unveil acts that violate this country’s antiterrorism laws,” the suit says. “This case will finally hold these admitted terrorists accountable for their actions. It is time for American campuses to return to being centers for learning and to be saved from relentless occupation by Hamas’ tragically misguided cohorts.”
The plaintiffs are victims of Hamas’ “heinous and ongoing acts of international terrorism that began on Oct. 7, 2023, the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust,” the complaint notes.
They include six relatives of hostages who remain held in Gaza. Hostages who were freed or rescued joined the lawsuit, including Iris Weinstein Haggai, the daughter of slain Israeli-Americans Gad and Judy Haggai. Three American Israel Defense Forces soldiers are also named as plaintiffs.
Anat Alon-Beck, a law professor working with the National Jewish Advocacy Center (NJAC), said the lawsuit highlights a matter of national security.
“While the U.S. cherishes free expression, it unequivocally condemns violence. Ironically, those who champion such support would be silenced under Hamas’ oppressive regime, starkly illustrating the contrast between our cherished freedoms and their brutal tyranny,” she said in a statement.
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“This case gives voice to heretofore seldom spoken facts. JVP, WOL, CUAD, the Students for Justice in Palestine collective, and student leaders on campuses throughout the country, are serving as instruments of Hamas, a foreign Terrorist Organization that hates the United States and the very values these anti-Israel college protestors claim to represent,” NJAC Associated Director Ben Schlager said. “The leadership of these campus protestors knowingly affiliates with those who applaud any form of physical, emotional or economic harm that can be inflicted upon citizens of a western democracy.”
“The right to advocate and even to propagandize is broadly construed in the U.S., on college campuses and in a vast array of fora,” NJAC CEO Mark Goldfeder, said. “It is not, however, unfettered and certainly does not encompass acts of violence, vandalism, physical intimidation, trespassing and breach of university rules that ensure student safety. Nor does it support the provision of material support for terror.”
Arielle F. Klepach, a former federal prosecutor and Senior Litigation Counsel at NJAC, said “this first-of-its-kind lawsuit seeks to hold accountable the entities and individuals directly responsible for wreaking havoc on Columbia for the last year and a half. As a Columbia alumna, the open and unaddressed support for terrorism has been disturbing to watch.”
“Those responsible will now begin to face consequences for their actions,” Klepach added.
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