Khalil
The past few months have been a whirlwind of bad and worse developments. I have been shielding myself from the news a bit because I was struggling to stay buoyant for my family’s sake. A luxury I know. One I feel guilty about. Because why should I or any of us take a break from the “stress of the news” when people living the much worse reality of it can’t?
But the avalanche of bad and worse developments eventually caught up and sucked me back in.
We were in Egypt and I was in the midst of prepping for Amina’s 10th birthday. It fell in Ramadan for the first time so the logistics were a bit different. I had to consult a couple of friends on the timing of it - before, at, or after fitar? Friday or Saturday (day off)? Typically, Friday would be a no-brainer but since it was the first Friday in Ramadan, it likely meant big family gatherings that would’ve prevented the kids from attending.
Scavenger hunt (typically Cole’s territory, but he was in China).
Pizza from What The Crust.
Salted Caramel icecream Cake from Dara’s.
Coordinating with parents about drop off and pick up.
These were the things that were preoccupying my mind on March 8th, 2025. Amina’s birthday.
It was also the day that Mahmoud Khalil was arrested.
My phone buzzed with notifications that I ignored. I didn’t really understand the full magnitude of what happened till days later when we were back in the US. I was having such a swell time in Egypt and was in a good place mentally - and that has been harder and harder for me to maintain - so I just didn’t want to spoil it. With “news”. With reality*.
Mahmoud Khalil was the first to be snatched and certainly his appears to be the most high-profile case right now. But there’s also Badar Khan Suri and Rumeysa Ozturk, and Ranjani Srinivasan and hundreds more.
The video of Khalil’s arrest taken by his 8-months-pregnant wife (a US citizen) immediately reminded me of Alaa Abdel Fattah, an Egyptian activist who has also been locked up on and off since 2013 for a total of over 10 years for charges like “inciting violence” and “organizing a protest without a permit”. His wife was also in her last stages of pregnancy when he was first detained in 2011. Missing his son’s birth during his two-month detention was just the beginning. Today, his son is a little over 13, and for the bulk of that time, Alaa was deprived of watching his firstborn grow and Khaled, his son, was deprived of his father.
Campaigns for Alaa’s release often asked democratic countries like the US to pressure undemocratic countries like Egypt to do better. Pressure often takes the form of things like activating US legislation that conditions military aid (some portion of it) on maintaining a clean(er) human rights records internally. Of course, these HR conditions could be waived by the US whenever it sees fit – like in 2024 when it decided that “US national security interest” mandated that Egypt gets the full amount of military aid. To maintain the “peace” in the region. Nevermind that Biden referred to Sisi as “Trump’s ‘favorite dictator’” in 2020 or that Egypt’s human rights record was subpar for the relevant year. It’s ok to disregard or rebrand violations in other countries in moments of crises. As long as it aligns with US national security priorities. Or so goes the rationale.
And now the same rationale seems to be applied in the US. This is the boomerang effect originally coined by Aime Cesaire in her 1950 Discourse on Colonialism and reapplied by Noura Erakat to US foreign policy decisions and how it inevitably affects internal politics in the US.
For example, the US in now reaping with Trump the fruits of the seeds it planted with Biden and all his predecessors in terms of its policies with Israel. Palestinians in Palestine do not have the right to fight against Israeli oppression no matter how egregious. Because they’re Jewish, they need to be protected and all else pales in service of this goal.
Now in the US, the government is applying a similar rationale to protect American Jews, at the expense of others’ rights. The government equates pro-Palestine protests with antisemitism and even terrorism it appears, leaving little room for clarifying whether the protests themselves were peaceful or not.
One of Trump’s first executive orders in January 2025 was the Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism. In it, he clearly identifies his goal as protecting “American Jews to the same extent to which all other American citizens are protected” and in his subsequent Fact Sheet he specifically names “pro-Hamas aliens and left-wing radicals” (are the latter citizens?) as the targets of his antisemitic laws.
Then sure enough, shortly afterwards it started arresting and detaining not just pro-Palestine supporters, but others to, like Srinivasan, who were peripherally related to a pro-Palestine protest.
It’s important to recognize that pro-Palestinians were not the only ones targeted by the US’ aggressive deportation policy and that the appalling campaign began with many allegedly illegal immigrants, mostly Venezuelan, being deported to El Salvador.
But the pro-Palestine chapter followed and it’s different because it targeted admittedly legal residents or others with legal visas.
So far, Khalil and others arrested and detained have been lawful residents, and not citizens. But both the manner and the basis on which he and others were arrested should give citizens and noncitizens alike pause. It invoked a rarely used provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) – Section 237 (a)(4)(C)(i). That section allows for the deportability of any Permanent Resident if their presence or activities cause the Secretary of State to suspect that it might have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences” for the US.
Effectively, all Rubio has to do is suspect and the person can be detained and possibly deported. That combatting Antisemitism is a US foreign policy goal has long been the case, especially since the establishment of the Office of the Special Envoy To Monitor and Combat Antisemitism (SEAS) in 2004. But that policy has been reinvigorated with Trump’s Additional Measures. Now the court’s asking for evidence of them “reasonable grounds” and will terminate the case by this Friday (April 11th) if the evidence doesn’t justify the cause for detention. But given the vagueness of Section2 237 and the fact that the Department of Homeland Security just yesterday (April 9th) announced that it will “begin screening aliens’ social media activity for antisemitism” and singles out a new category of terrorism - “antisemitic terrorism”. So who knows what will count as evidence. Maybe someone posting about Israel’s genocidal campaign on Gaza qualifies as antisemitic.
And even in other cases where lower courts attempted to block Trump’s orders, the Supreme Court reversed that block. So it’s a court battle but in the meantime all is fair game it seems.
Khalil’s case is a test case and if it goes unchallenged, it can touch anyone – citizen or not. Adam Serwer captures it pretty neatly: “If the state can deprive an individual of his freedom just because of his politics…then no one is safe. You may believe that Khalil does not deserve free speech or due process. But if he does not have them then neither do you. Neither do I”.
***
My kids have a book translated to Arabic called “The Lamb that refused to be a Sheep” (الحمل الذي رفض أن يكون خروفا) that we always liked but it’s been coming to mind more often recently.
It talks about a herd of sheep that were repeatedly attacked by a wolf. Because it originally targeted only those weak and different amongst them, the sheep didn’t take it too seriously and continued being…well. sheep. Until the wolf got their ram. Then a little lamb spoke up and said they needed to join forces to defeat the wolf. And they did. The story ends with a poem inspired by Martin Niemoller’s quote, which is as true today as it was back in Nazi Germany when he first said it.
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.
Martin Niemoller
I think I’ll slip this book in my books bag when I read with the boys at Bigley while Amina’s at her pre-swim lesson tonight. And maybe I’ll write the poem on the blackboard in their room and we can read it every night until the concept is seared in our conscience. And maybe I’ll record the story and add it to my kids podcast. So other kids can hear it.
“Then what?” I ask myself. I don’t know.
* I sometimes have a hard time with this word. Reality. I have 3 beautiful children, a lovely husband, an easy pleasant life in small time Viroqua. Wonderful supportive family in both Wisconsin and Egypt. Why on earth do I feel so blue? The world feels like it’s falling apart - elsewhere. But right here. The people I can touch and smell. They’re happy and healthy. And with me. Shouldn’t I be with them too? Emotionally and not just physically. Shouldn’t that be my reality? Or is it my bubble? If either way I can’t do squat to fight any of the darkness that seems to be swallowing up the world, then why bother. What’s the point of learning about the things if all it does is deprives me and mine from enjoying our small-but-big life together? Somedays I can do both. Genuinely be happy despite knowing what is going on in the world. But more days it feels schizophrenic. Do we as individuals actually have agency? Or is it another lofty democratic chimera. If anyone reading this has some pearls of wisdom, please share.