The Palestinian Columbia University student arrested by ICE agents in Vermont led disruptive anti-Israel protests on campus, and engaged in “threatening rhetoric and intimidation” against Jewish students, State Department sources tell The Post.
Mohsen Mahdawi, who hails from the West Bank, was at an interview to obtain his US citizenship on Monday when he was picked up by immigration authorities, his lawyer said.
“Mahdawi, through his leadership and involvement in disruptive protests at Columbia University, has engaged in antisemitic conduct through leading pro-Palestinian protests and calling for Israel’s destruction,” a senior State Department source said.
The source said screenshots of Mahdawi’s social media activity that show his virulent anti-Israel views only tell part of the story.
“Mahdawi played an active role in fall 2024 student protests at Columbia University, instructing protesters to physically push a small group of pro-Israel students, events that university officials later acknowledged as threatening rhetoric and intimidation,” the source said.
The source also said Mahdawi was behind “antisemitic rhetoric” during the protests, including referring to Israel Defense Force soldiers as terrorists and “shouting through a megaphone” at Jewish bystanders and supporters of Israel.
Mahdawi was shown in video footage speaking into a microphone during a campus protest while standing in front of a banner reading “by any means necessary” in a profile on CBS’ “60 Minutes” in December 2023.
He also said he could “empathize” with Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 terror attack against the Jewish state in which 1,200 men, women and children were brutally slaughtered, and called Israel’s response to the massacre “a genocide” in the interview.
“I did not say that I justify what Hamas has done, I said I can empathize. To empathize is to understand the root cause and not look at any event or situation in a vacuum.”
Mahdawi was co-president of Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine, which celebrated the Oct. 7 terror attack, calling it “an unprecedented historic moment for the Palestinians in Gaza.”
The university later suspended the group in November 2023 for repeated violations of campus policy around protests.
Families of hostages still held by Hamas after the terror attack filed a lawsuit last month that alleged SJP had advance knowledge of Hamas’ bloody plans, accusing it of being “Hamas’ American propaganda arm,” and pointing to an Instagram post by the group it said was published minutes before the attack proclaiming “we are back!!.”
Video footage posted on X Monday appeared to show Mahdawi being escorted with his hands shackled in front of him and surrounded by federal agents, who placed him into an unmarked vehicle.
Mahdawi called his detention “kind of a death sentence,” according to The Intercept.
Mahdawi, who was friends with detained anti-Israel Columbia protester Mahmoud Khalil, anticipated becoming a target of the Trump administration’s mass deportation effort and went into hiding, asking the university for help finding shelter, according to the Intercept.
Mahdawi “was unlawfully detained today for no reason other than his Palestinian identity,” his attorney, Luna Droubi, told The Intercept.
“He came to this country hoping to be free to speak out about the atrocities he has witnessed, only to be punished for such speech,” she added.
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