Look Who Suddenly Loves Free Speech

By Abe Greenwald

Wednesday, March 12, 2025

 

It’s funny how quickly the left moves from arguing that “speech is violence” to embracing a maximalist stance on free expression. The same mobs who wanted you punished for using the wrong pronoun are now the country’s most passionate defenders of the First Amendment. Don’t get too excited. They still hate free speech, but they’re a little busy at the moment. There’s a pro-Hamas, pro-Hezbollah green-card holder to celebrate.

 

The left can always be counted on to fall in love with a terror-supporting radical. But you know what they love even more than a terror-supporting radical? A terror-supporting radical of exotic origin? And what outshines that? A terror-supporting radical who’s been arrested. For the left, Mahmoud Khalil is the brass ring.

 

And most liberals can be counted on to follow the left’s lead. So they, too, now defend Khalil. The thing about liberals is that they believe the left’s cover stories while missing its actual intentions. They believed that Black Lives Matter was about saving black lives, not creating chaos. They believed that the trans movement was about protecting an at-risk population, not undoing the basic precepts of reality. And they believe that the Free-Mahmoud campaign is about freedom of speech, not anti-Semitic, anti-American revolution.

 

In the U.S., the glorification of radicals goes back to the 1960s and the liberal infatuation with the Black Panthers and other violent leftist organizations. A murderous, Marxist group of armed black men was too much for rich, white liberals to resist.

 

So is Khalil. A host of Democrats have condemned his arrest, and on Monday, Senate Judiciary Democrats took to social media to post: “Free Mahmoud Khalil.” Today, at the Washington Post, Philip Bump has whipped up a theory that Khalil’s arrest is somehow evidence of Donald Trump’s cronyism (I read it twice and still don’t understand what he means). But what jumped out at me from Bump’s general defense of Khalil is this: “Trump’s allies and the administration itself have repeatedly reinforced the punitive aspect of Khalil’s arrest, with the White House sharing an obnoxious social media post bidding Khalil ‘shalom’ — a Hebrew word that can be used to mean ‘goodbye.’”

 

The first thing I want to say is: Ha-ha, free speech!

 

But more important, you want obnoxious social-media posts? Take a look at the work of Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), the organization in which Khalil is a prominent leader. On Instagram, the group posted: “We support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance.” Resistance to what? Check CUAD’s Substack, where the organization described October 7 as “[Yahya] Sinwar’s crowning achievement” and said the “Al-Aqsa Flood was the very essence of what it is to resist ‘with what we have.’”

 

CUAD publicly cheers on Hamas and Hezbollah and mourns the death of individual terrorists. It also calls for the downfall of the United States. There’s plenty more, and the Jerusalem Post has all the receipts.

 

The point is: The Trump administration should reinforce the punitive aspect of Khalil’s arrest. He and his organization deserve punishment. Anyone who promotes American-designated terrorist organizations while in the U.S. on a conditional basis should get the same treatment that Khalil is getting from ICE.

 

And that’s Trump’s plan. “This is the first arrest of many to come,” he wrote on Truth Social. “We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it.” Which means the left and its liberal allies are going to be very besotted and very busy.

 

Not only are many liberals blind to the left’s true intentions; they’re also unaware that the rest of the country sees these eruptions for what they are—the glorification of hateful radicalism. Whether Khalil is ultimately deported or he wins in court, liberals are certain to lose their case before the public. And that’s how Donald Trump got back in the White House. Shalom, Democrats.