New York Episcopal Bishop and Jewish Journalist Clash Over Deportation of Palestinian Student

By David W. Virtue, DD

www.virtueonline.org

March 17, 2025

The Episcopal Bishop of New York, the Rt. Rev. Matthew Heyd, has condemned the Trump administration's attempt to deport a Palestinian student Mahmoud Khalil, who holds a green card, for his involvement last year protesting the war in Gaza while he was a graduate student at Columbia University.

Khalil, 30, was arrested and is being held in a federal facility in Louisiana while he fights deportation. 

According to the liberal bishop, the Trump administration has produced no evidence that Khalil engaged in criminal activity, and as a green card holder, his lawful permanent residency can only be revoked for specific causes with approval of an immigration judge.

“The Episcopal Diocese of New York rejects the detention and threat of deportation of Mahmoud Khalil,” Heyd said in a statement posted to Facebook. “In accordance with our faith and civic creed, we uphold the belief that difference and dissent should be safe. We reject deportation based on political viewpoint – whether we agree or disagree.”

However, British Israeli journalist and author Melanie Phillips said the uproar over the arrest and detention of Khalil — the Syrian-born student agitator who orchestrated the anti-Israel mayhem at Columbia University and now faces losing his green card and being deported— is profoundly ill-judged.

“Democrats and other liberal useful idiots have been screaming that Khalil is being persecuted for expressing his support for “Palestine”. This is rubbish. He’s a foreign visitor who organized a violent takeover of campus with Hamas-linked activities and who conspired to commit civil rights violations.”

“The protests against his arrest aren’t just morally bankrupt. They also obscure the fact that Khalil and his ilk are active participants in a highly organized Islamist uprising against the West. Western liberals who think such people are supporting the “oppressed Palestinians” have been played for suckers,” she said.

Antiwar protests at Columbia University and other campuses across the United States generated widespread headlines and controversy in spring 2024 as the Israel-Hamas war dragged on, decimating the Palestinian territory of Gaza, killing thousands of Palestinians and displacing many of the densely populated territory’s 2 million residents, nearly all of whom support Hamas.

In the US, campus authorities faced pressure on both sides: to protect students’ right to peacefully protest while also ensuring the safety of Jewish students when those protests cross the line by threatening and attacking Jewish students--as happened during the Columbia demonstrations.

Since taking office on Jan. 20, President Donald Trump, saying he is combating antisemitism, has threatened to deport foreign-born campus protesters who opposed Israel’s war on Hamas, which Israel launched in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israeli communities, and threatened or attacked Jewish students. The Trump administration has specifically scrutinized Columbia University’s handling of the protests, and on March 7, the administration announced it would cut $400 million in federal grants and contracts to the university.

Khalil appears to have been targeted for arrest by the Trump administration because of his involvement in a group known as Columbia University Apartheid Divest, which has been accused of glorifying Hamas’ attack on Israel. Before his arrest, Khalil told the Associated Press that much of the focus on him was related to the group’s social media posts, in which he has not been involved.

Then on March 8, Khalil was in his university-owned apartment when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents showed up and took him into custody, his attorney, Amy Greer, told the Associated Press. His wife is eight months pregnant.

A Homeland Security spokesperson later alleged that Khalil had “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.”

The bishop also affirmed the Diocese of New York as a “sanctuary diocese” in which “we care for our neighbors.”

“Today, we stand with our neighbors at Columbia University. We also encourage Columbia to protect its students when they are threatened. Higher education depends upon the ability to speak honestly and freely, without fear of retribution; and on attracting people of diverse and international viewpoints. As Christians, we’re calling on our neighbors to be neighbors.”

Unimpressed by this Phillips, a well-respected UK newspaper columnist said the aim of Palestinians is no secret. Jihadi warriors from both the Sunni and Shi’ite Islamic world in Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran have repeatedly threatened that, after they have destroyed Israel and the Jews, they’re coming for the West.

That’s why the uproar over the arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil — the Syrian-born student agitator who orchestrated the anti-Israel mayhem at Columbia University and now faces losing his green card and being deported— is so profoundly ill-judged.

People in the West are constantly being shocked by developments inspired by the Islamic world. They were shocked by the October 7 atrocities. They have been shocked by the violent “pro-Gaza” demonstrations. They have been shocked by the recent terrible scenes from Syria, said Phillips.

“Such indifference to the outrageous lawbreaking, harassment and intimidation that has consumed universities, which have echoed for months with chants for Israel’s destruction and the murder of Jews, throws into even sharper relief the shocking revelation that support for Israel in America has fallen to below 50 per cent for the first time.”

The latest Gallup polling revealed only 46 percent of Americans say their sympathies lie more with Israel than the Palestinians, while 33 percent sympathize more with the Palestinians, up by 6 percentage points from last year.

How could this have happened?

American support for Israel has long been as reliable as the sun rising in the morning. Israel is not only regarded as America’s indispensable bulwark in the Middle East; Americans’ support for it has been more full-throated and emotional than among many Jewish communities around the world.

The huge drop in support overall has been caused by Democrat supporters, who have registered a stunning 59 per cent support for the Palestinians versus only 21 per cent for Israel. In sharp contrast, Republicans support Israel over the Palestinians 75 per cent to 10 per cent.

In other words, Israel has become a partisan issue. So why have the Democrats turned against the Jewish state?

Gallup suggests the reason is the Israel-Hamas war, as well as the polarization of attitudes toward President Trump. These are hardly likely to be the main causes, though, since such trends have been developing over many years.

The main reason is surely the Democrats have turned against Israel because the left in general has turned against Israel, concluded Phillips.

This is principally the outcome of the massive Palestinian propaganda campaign that’s been running for decades in the universities and across all the institutions of the culture, indoctrinating successive generations in a false and malicious narrative that’s scarcely been challenged.

It’s also because this Palestinian cause has become in turn the centrepiece of the “intersectionality” agenda of interlocking “victim” groups based on race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender and other categories of identity politics.

These campaigns of grievance and resentment are all based on attacking the western nation-state as having been born in the original sins of colonialism and racism, with its inhabitants guilty of white privilege.

Israel, the Jewish people’s nation-state and regarded as an outpost of American power occupied by white Jews — though most Israeli Jews are brown or black-skinned and 20 percent of the population are Israeli Arabs — is therefore held to be multiply damned.

The liberal-progressive world’s embrace of all these radical agendas has moved the dial, so that what was once considered far-left is now deemed the centre ground and what was once considered the centre ground is now deemed right-wing or even far-right.

END