Mahmoud Khalil says Palestinian activism has reshaped US politics

Updated By Faith Barbara N Ruhinda at 1146 EAT on Wednesday 28 October 2026

Pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil says campus advocacy has shifted public perceptions and encouraged a generation of leaders to question their views on Israel, as he returned to Columbia University for the first time since his arrest.

The 31-year-old Columbia graduate, who emerged as a prominent figure in the US campus protests of 2024, returned to the university on Tuesday to discuss his new memoir, No Land to Stand On: Notes from Detention. The visit marked his first return to campus since his arrest on March 8, 2025.

“The American public is finally changing, is finally looking at Palestinians as equal human beings,” he told AFP in an interview.

Khalil described the event, which was attended by about 100 people, as a “victory” but accused the university’s leadership of seeking “to erase me, to erase any Palestinian voices on campus”.

Some Jewish groups criticised his return to campus on social media. In response, a Columbia spokesperson said the university was “committed to rigorous debate, inquiry, and respectful dialogue across differing perspectives”.

“Columbia supports the right of faculty members to organise academic events,” the statement, carried by US media, read. “An invitation to speak does not signify university endorsement of a speaker’s views.”

Khalil helped lead student demonstrations at Columbia in 2024, making the university a focal point of nationwide campus protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, which many critics have described as genocidal.

He was arrested by immigration authorities on March 8, 2025, amid a federal crackdown on foreign student activists. Despite holding US permanent residency, he was detained for three months without being criminally charged.

Khalil has repeatedly criticised the university’s handling of the demonstrations, including its decision to authorise the New York Police Department to clear protesters from its Manhattan campus.

“They chose brutality. They chose repression,” Khalil told AFP.

Columbia maintained at the time that the demonstrations posed a safety threat. Khalil also accused the university of failing to protect him from harassment before his detention.

Despite the personal toll, Khalil credited Palestinian student activism with contributing to broader political shifts in the United States, pointing to the election of progressive candidates.

“Also, we can see on the ground that we have more progressive candidates being elected into US Congress and positions of power,” he said, citing Dr Abdul El-Sayed, who is running for the US Senate in Michigan, and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Khalil was released from immigration custody on June 20, 2025, although the Trump administration continues to pursue his deportation.

“A big part of my fight is like fighting for normalcy,” he said. “To go back to being the young father who would go to the park with his son and wife, and no one would bother them.”

Despite the ongoing legal battle, Khalil said he remained determined to continue speaking out.

“My fight is not only about whether I get to stay in this country,” he said. “It is about whether, you know, people in this country can speak their minds.”

-Aljazeera

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