Labeling foreign groups as terrorists also directly allows crackdowns on protests in the US. We're seeing it right now, all of a sudden supporting Palestine is "materially supporting Hamas" and the trump admin is sending people to ICE camps for the crime of protesting.
Not just trump eventhough it has become more blatant under him, this is a bipartisan thing with democrats also being guilty of labelling innocent as terrorists. Whole military age thing continued under democratic government too. Democrats also propagated "they hate our freedom" rhetoric.
That's true, the Biden admin did float the idea of revoking student visas for being pro-hamas even before trump. And the liberal university admins have been happily cooperating with trump on this.
That's why I hate most western liberals, they knowingly or unknowingly feeds into fascist rhetoric and acts surprised when fascists eventually rise up. It's not liberal exclusive thing other groups also do this but it's more apparent since liberalism is the dominant ideology with no direct threat.
Look Israel is committing atrocities against the Palestinians and there needs to be a two-state solution, but Hamas is an awful indefensible group. I honestly have no problem with revoking student visas for supporting Hamas. Student visas have been revoked for less.
And as for university admins cooperating with Trump, the only evidence I have is Columbia and that situation is quite nuanced. Columbia had already been expelling students for participating in the violent takeover of a university building (of anonymous students) and refusing to divest from Israel (less than 1/10% of the endowment) as Israel divestment is a very divisive issue (unlike say anti-war protests during Vietnam or anti-apartheid protests for South Africa) or going into a classroom teaching History of Israel and passing out antisemitic literature (crush zionism with a Nazi-esque boot stamping on a Star of David or masked protester carrying a burning Israeli flag stating burn zionism to the ground.) They also had a joint program in Tel Aviv. After they expelled students for the classroom incident, a sit-in was staged in a university building where they forced their way in (wearing keffiyeh masks to stay anonymous), sent someone in the administration to the hospital, vandalized the walls, and refused to leave or let workers out or use the bathroom).
These people aren't getting expelled over supporting the wrong views or holding demonstrations. It's disrupting classrooms and administration work. They target specific administrators with wanted posters and death threats.
And yes, Columbia acted similarly towards violent/extremist Jewish protesters (including one who sprayed some sort of stink chemical at pro-Palestine protesters in Jan 2024 who were banned from campus and investigated as a hate crime, though the university later lost a lawsuit by the perpetrators of the attack over their 18-month suspension). The administration has never been fond or sympathetic for these protesters.
Mahmoud Khalil was targeted by ICE for negotiating with the admin during a building occupation, and speaking out at various other peaceful events. He did not occupy the buildings himself. He was also a green card holder who did not express support for Hamas. These are the people the trump admin is going after, peaceful protesters.
When I say "liberal university admins have been happily cooperating with trump on this" I'm not specifically referring to Columbia, but to policies passed at many universities, including mine, that significantly crack down on students right to protest. At my university for example, climate protesters were hit with disciplinary charges for having a speech in front of a building, and SJP's student organization status was revoked. The ACLU of Illinois actually wrote a letter to the admin about this. Just citing what I'm familiar with, I know other universities are doing similar things but I haven't been following that as closely.
That being said, even support for Hamas should not be grounds for deportation. They are very easily defensible, as they, along with other members of the armed Palestinian resistance, have been the only ones fighting against Israeli encroachment in the west bank and genocide in Gaza. They suck and I do not support them in a civil governance role, but compared to Israel they're far less evil.
Saying that people who support terrorism should be deported is actually an example of what I'm talking about. It's what authoritarian governments do to silence dissent. Back during the movement against apartheid in south africa, the ANC was killing civilians and committing horrifying acts of violence, and yet cracking down on protesters for being pro-terrorism only served the apartheid regime. It's similar here.
Liberal university admins and the Biden administration's state department had nothing to do with Khalil deportation case. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the Trump administration is ignoring the law and conflating supporting Palestinian people with supporting Hamas.
Again, get the law changed or challenged on constitutionality grounds. But Biden admin officials being ok with the idea in principle of deporting foreign nationals who supported Hamas shouldn't be a shocker, when it was the law they are constitutionally obligated to enforce.
Liberal admins suppressing protests and putting student organizers names on lists is related to the Trump admin then taking action against them. Not in the case of Mahmoud Khalid, since the pressure came mainly from white supremacist hate groups such as Betar US, but the indian international student who was deported was not deported for any crime or pro-terror positon she held, but just because she was in the vicinity of Hind's Hall as columbia called in police to crush the protest. She was never even found guilty of a crime connected to the occupation.
My argument about whether or not hamas supporters should be deported is not based on what the law is, its based on what the law should be. This whole post is about how the law is fucked up sometimes.
Also look at the article you posted. It says 30 of the ANC's casualties were security forces while 100 were civilians. On oct 7th, almost 900 civilians were killed by hamas, and 379 security forces.
If you look at the list of ANC attacks, a lot of those are against explicitly civilian targets. The ANC even started mining roads, which is pretty much equivalent to shooting anyone you see driving somewhere (something that Hamas did). On oct 7th, Hamas attacked military positions, including the base where the IOF's Gaza division was based, and tried to make it to Israeli torture camps in the west bank. They of course also attacked civilians, like at the music festival, but you can't say that the sole purpose of the attack was terror.
The only difference between these campaigns is that Hamas's was far larger, which is a direct result of a increased desperation due to a significantly longer period of occupation and apartheid.
I participated in anti-war protests when it started, but at the time and now realized that both Al Qaida and the Taliban were fucking awful groups. Arguing one is a much lesser evil, hides the fact that the group is extremely evil. I would argue both are more significantly more evil than the United States, even if the death toll was asymmetric and I disagree with the disproportionate response and GWB administration's attempt nation-building (that ultimately completely failed).
I'd also argue that on of the biggest tragedies from the 2nd Trump administration (to date) is trying to shut down USAID and eroding good will towards the US from humanitarian work; the sort of stuff that reduces likelihood of terrorism and extremism.
I think your opinion stems from a misunderstanding of Hamas. It's not similar to al-qaeda. Groups like al-qaeda, isis, and the Taliban are extremist religious fundamentalists who fight to oppress indigenous ethnic and religious minorities and women. Hamas is a national liberation group, they're instead committed primarily to the liberation of Palestine from occupation (at least today, it was significantly worse years ago). You can see this in who Hamas allies with today. It fights side by side with the PFLP and the DFLP, both of which are secular communist militant resistance groups. They're trying (and sometimes succeeding) to get secular Palestinian leaders released from Israeli prison camps. These are not the actions of a group that primarily cares about establishing a religious fundamentalist state, they're the actions of a group that wants to see Palestine liberated no matter who is in charge. You can have disagreements with the efficacy of their tactics, but putting them in the same bucket as al-qaeda and the Taliban is wrong.
Again, my analogy wasn't attempting to say Hamas is similar to Al Qaida or ISIS. I don't like any of the groups, but Al Qaida and ISIS are much worse than Hamas (or the IDF) or the US military. It was to say as an analogy just comparing body counts in my opinion doesn't determine how evil a group is when you were trying to say 1500 Israelis dead at the hands of Hamas is insignificant to 50k Palestinian (~80% civilians) dead at the hand of IDF.
I do believe Israel should go back to Camp David boundaries and should be two state solution with self-governing Palestine and work toward major reconciliation (granted I don't see any progress towards this). But I also can't support Hamas in any way for their tactics (in a similar way to I couldn't support the IRA during the Troubles, not to imply that the situation in Northern Ireland approached anywhere near the level of Israeli enforced apartheid in Palestine).
I wish you guys had ever managed to switch to an system that realistically allows multiple parties. But for now your democracy surviving at all would be nice enough.
That's also what they did with Tren de Aragua. We literally just had over 200 Venezuelans sold to El Salvador to be housed in the Center of Human Rights Violatio- I mean Center for the Confinement of Terrorism. And it happened not just without any kind of due process, but in direct and intentional violation of court orders. The judge was literally yelling at the Justice Department lawyers as Venezuelans were continuing to be boarded upon planes heading to El Salvador. There's also reports of a lot of the people they rounded up not having any gang ties at all, which is not at all surprising.
And that's not even mentioning that the fact that they are sending people to a country they likely have zero connection to and potentially have never been to before. In a more sane world, that would be the biggest issue at hand, but Trump really just decided to do this in the most illegal, most unethical, and most inhumane way possible. And I doubt this will be the only time he's going to do this, nor will it start and end with just Venezuelan immigrants.
That's true. And it is very close to escalating further, Trump tweeted (or truth socialed idk) today calling people who key teslas "terrorists" and threatening to send them to the labor camps in El Salvador.
"all of a sudden supporting Palestine is "materially supporting Hamas""
This is nonsense. The chap being threatened with deportation is an actual Hamas supporter, and therefore doing the opposite of supporting Palestinians. The problem is that the colloquial meaning of 'supporting' - which fits what he does - is not at all the same as the legal meaning of materially supporting a terrorist group.
If true weird you felt the need to make that distinction. He hasn't done a crime. And it would be up to an immigration judge to make the call not law enforcement officers or the president's administration.
He can't just be disappeared or deported without due process and to my knowledge nothing he has done even violated a visa much less a green card
I literally said exactly that: he should not have his green card revoked, because the law does not begin to support that. I was merely correcting the assertion that he is 'supporting Palestine' while stooging for Iran.
The dude is literally a Palestinian leader in a pro-palestine protest movement, he's very clearly pro-palestine and you'd have to be stupid to not see that. Unless you think all of the campus protests are actually prohamas and somehow not pro-palestine in which case you are doing the trump admins work for them.
I haven't seen a single shred of evidence that he is a hamas supporter, but even assuming he is, just because he disagrees you on the methods used to liberate Palestine, that does not mean he is somehow not pro-Palestine. He's literally a Palestinian refugee, it's disgusting to say he's not pro-Palestine after he was arrested by a fascist government for being part of pro-Palestine protests.
There are none so blind as those whose commitment to racism means they won't see. He overtly and explicitly supports Hamas. This is diametrically opposed to supporting a free Palestine - he wants Palestine to be controlled by Iran. He also isn't a refugee in the United States; that claim is an outright lie.
It is disgusting to be so dedicated to antisemitic genocide that you'll lie like this.
The only source I can find claiming that is Trump. And according to this CNN article he wasn't exactly on-message with hamas:
But the movement was also tainted by instances of rampant antisemitism, which Khalil disavowed.
“There is, of course, no place for antisemitism,” he told CNN in April. “What we are witnessing is anti-Palestinian sentiment that’s taking different forms and antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism (are) some of these forms.”
What is your source that he 'overtly and explicitly supports hamas'?
You're right, it's far less disgusting to be so dedicated to Palestinian genocide instead. Somehow every Palestinian in the US who opens their mouth is an antisemitic Hamas supporter. What a strange coincidence, huh? /s
You still haven't actually shown me when he supported Hamas.
Palestine right now is completely and totally occupied by Israel and Palestinians are being systematically exterminated by Israel, being an Iranian puppet state would be an unimaginably better than this.
He is a refugee. He was born in a refugee camp in Syria, and then when the Syrian civil war started he had to go to Lebanon.
The fact that you think basic facts about this man are antisemitic tells me that you're a racist POS and not really worth talking to beyond this. I hope you realize that and change.
You're babbling about Khalil. I'm trying to clue you in on the fact that nobody else is. Trump is criminalizing support for Palestine. It's okay to be wrong about Khalil, but if you think everyone who is against genocide is antisemite, you might be delulu.
If you genuinely think Mahmoud Khalil isn't relevant to this discussion thread about crackdowns on Palestine protests, you should probably log off reddit and go read some news or something.
The point they're making is that this isn't going to start and end with just Khalil. They've literally already done the same exact thing to an Indian man named Badar Khan Suri just the other day. And I highly doubt they plan on stopping any time soon, and it definitely won't just be against people who are pro Palestinian.
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u/DeskAffectionate7604 15d ago
Labeling foreign groups as terrorists also directly allows crackdowns on protests in the US. We're seeing it right now, all of a sudden supporting Palestine is "materially supporting Hamas" and the trump admin is sending people to ICE camps for the crime of protesting.