In Trump's America, it can be dangerous to criticise the president's friends
Mahmoud Khalil
, Mohsen Mahdawi,
Rumeysa Ozturk
and Kseniia Petrova are foreign graduate students in their early 30s. All were in the
US
legally to study at Ivy League universities. Since February, they have been detained and threatened with deportation. Three are held in detention centres in Louisiana. Mahdawi's whereabouts are uncertain.
The
Trump administration
considers the three who criticised
Israel's war on Gaza
anti-Semites and terrorist supporters. The fourth, a brilliant Russian scientist, opposes
Vladimir Putin
.
In Donald Trump's America, criticising the president's friends can be as dangerous as criticising Trump himself.
The administration has rescinded the legal status of close to 1,000 international university students since mid-March, according to the Association of International Educators. Most have had their visas revoked without notice and have not been told what they have done wrong. Many prefer to 'self-deport' – the administration's term – rather than be expelled by force. Secretary of state
Marco Rubio
told a press conference last month that he had personally revoked more than 300 student visas, including those of Khalil and Ozturk, under a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act which permits the deportation of noncitizens judged to be 'adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests' of the US.
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'We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist who tears up our university campuses,' Rubio said when asked about Ozturk's case. 'Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa.'
Ozturk's 'crime' was to have co-authored an opinion piece in the Tufts University newspaper calling on the university to cut financial ties with Israel and denounce genocide in Gaza.
Protesters hold signs in support of Rumeysa Ozturk at Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Photograph: Taylor Coester/Shutterstock/EPA-EFE
Khalil is a Palestinian born in a refugee camp in Syria. He earned a degree in computer science at the American University of Beirut and once managed a scholarship programme in Lebanon for the British Embassy. He was to have received his master's degree in public administration from
Columbia University
next month. His wife, Noor Abdalla, a dentist and US citizen, was about to give birth to their first child, a son, when agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) seized him in the lobby of their building on March 8th. Khalil had led protests at Columbia against Israel's destruction of the Gaza Strip in retaliation for the Hamas atrocities of October 7th, 2023.
Mahdawi helped Khalil organise the Columbia protests but renounced activism in the spring of 2024. A refugee from the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Mahdawi is a practising Buddhist. He had a premonition about the citizenship interview where he was instead arrested on April 14th, and met Senator Bernie Sanders and two other lawmakers beforehand. Jewish and Israeli-American students whom Mahdawi befriended at Columbia have spoken out on his behalf.
Ozturk, who is Turkish, was a doctoral candidate in child development at Tufts University. She became alarmed when she learned in early March that a pro-Israel group called Canary Mission had 'doxed' her – posted her photograph and resumé and denounced her for 'anti-Israeli activism'.
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US immigration judge rules Palestinian Columbia student Khalil can be deported
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]
A shocking security camera video shows black-clad plainclothes officers with faces hidden swarming Ozturk on a Massachusetts street and bundling her into a waiting SUV on March 25th. She suffered asthma attacks during the overnight journey to New Hampshire and Vermont, from where she was flown to an Ice facility in Louisiana. The administration usually transfers those selected for deportation to states where judges support Maga ideology.
Canary Mission is a far-right Jewish group whose self-proclaimed mission is to pursue those who promote 'hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews on North American college campuses'. The source of its financing and location are unknown,
leading The New York Times to call it 'shadowy'
.
Khalil was also 'doxed' by Canary Mission. Immigration lawyers believe that Ice uses blacklists established by Canary Mission and another extreme pro-Israel group, Betar, to target critics of Israel. Betar has boasted openly of distributing a 'deport list' of 3,000 immigrants.
Artwork on the desk of Kseniia Petrova, a scientist who fled Russia after protesting its invasion of Ukraine, at Harvard. Photograph: Lucy Lu/The New York Times
Petrova was part of a team researching ageing at
Harvard
Medical School. She was stopped at Boston's Logan Airport on February 16th, ostensibly for carrying petri-dishes containing frog embryos donated by the Curie Institute to her lab at Harvard, an offence that would normally carry a small fine. She had refused to hide her opposition to Putin and fled Russia days after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Ice has rejected Petrova's lawyer's petitions for parole, saying she is a flight risk and a threat to US security.
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Harvard sues Trump administration to stop the freeze of €1.9 billion in grants
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]
EU staffers bound for the IMF and World Bank meetings in Washington this week were provided with burner phones and basic laptops containing no record of their political opinions. The Committee to Protect Journalists this month urged journalists travelling to the US to leave personal phones or laptops at home. Before Trump, such precautions were taken only for travel to totalitarian countries.
Americans, too, are fearful of Trump's assault on freedom of speech and opinion. 'We are all afraid,' the veteran Republican senator Lisa Murkowski said in Anchorage this month. 'I'll tell you, I'm oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real.'
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The Journal
an hour ago
- The Journal
'Hatred and fear and rage': A former Israeli officer on why some soldiers oppose the occupation
BEFORE HE MOVED to Israel in 2011, Joel Carmel grew up in the Orthodox Jewish community in London, where defending Israel was seen as both an obligation and a calling. These days he's part of a group of former Israeli soldiers speaking out about the realities of the military occupation of Palestine, and the ongoing war against the people of Gaza. The advocacy director of Breaking the Silence, a group of Israeli military veterans opposed to the occupation, visited Dublin this week on a trip organised with Christian Aid and Trócaire. He sat down with The Journal to discuss the events that led to his own change of heart, why some soldiers feel compelled to speak out, and what the consequences are for those who do. Exploited trauma Many of the soldiers who have given testimony about their recent experiences in Gaza had previously spoken to Breaking the Silence and had decided never to return to military service in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. That was until Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups launched their unprecedented attack against Israel from Gaza on 7 October 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people – mostly civilians – and the capture of 251 hostages. 'People really felt at that moment that there was a need to fight for our survival as a country,' Carmel said. For some, that impetus did not take long to fade. 'It became very clear, quite soon into the war, that this wasn't about the objectives that the government said it's about,' Carmel said. 'It wasn't about bringing home the hostages and it wasn't about eliminating Hamas either, because they have not done a good job on either front.' It's about controlling larger and larger parts of the territory. 'And from the point of view of some very influential people in our government, it's about paving the way for building new settlements.' More than 600 days into the retaliatory war on Gaza, Israel has killed more than 55,000 people and been accused of genocide in a case at the International Court of Justice. Carmel said those soldiers who answered the call in 2023 and have since come back from Gaza with new testimony for Breaking the Silence, returned with 'a deep disappointment in the mission and in the exploitation of people, of Israelis, in order to carry out this mission, which is so obviously a political war'. 'It's a war for the survival of this government.' The trauma inflicted on all Israelis by the 2023 attack, Carmel explained, was a gift to the extremist members of the current coalition government in Israel, exemplified by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. 'It's horrible to say, but for the more extreme right-wing elements of this government… they saw 7 October, probably with sadness and shock and so on, but they saw it as an opportunity.' In May, Smotrich said Gaza would be 'entirely destroyed' and that the people who live there would 'leave in great numbers to third countries'. 'Hatred and fear and rage' According to Carmel, who left the army in 2015 and joined Breaking the Silence in 2019, the experiences that spur members of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) to come out against the occupation are varied. In his case, what first led him to question the logic of Israeli occupation was the sight of terrified children he encountered on a 'mapping mission' in the West Bank. At the time, he was an officer in COGAT (Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories), the branch of the military that oversees the administration of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, but on this occasion he was accompanying combat soldiers. Mapping missions in the West Bank, which has been occupied since 1967, are ostensibly carried out to produce sketches of Palestinian homes in case the IDF ever invades the area. The soldiers arrived at a house in the middle of the night and the unit commander banged on the door to wake up the family inside. 'I think the image that really caught me was just seeing the family. It was just a normal family,' he said. 'There were kids there, and I remember looking at them and thinking, no one's told them it's going to be okay. 'I wanted to somehow communicate to them that it was going to be okay,' he said. But he doesn't speak Arabic and wasn't a member of the unit. 'It was a bit difficult to know what to do and I just decided that I was going to smile, you know, that was the only thing I had. They looked at me with a stare of hatred and fear and rage. 'I think that was the moment that made me think, there's something very deeply wrong about what we're doing. 'The way that I was brought up, in the community I was brought up in, but also in the training that I got in the IDF, you're told that everything that we do as soldiers is for the purpose of keeping our friends and our families safe. It's all about security. 'And then something about this image was it became so clear that there's nothing security-related about this.' Carmel later learned that not only was this a 'very soft' mapping mission, but that once the sketches of the homes are complete, soldiers often simply throw them away. Advertisement The real purpose of these missions, he explained using IDF language, is 'to make our presence felt' and show Palestinians 'who's in charge here'. Human shields One account from a former soldier who returned from Gaza stands out to Carmel as particularly powerful. It has been widely reported, including in testimony provided to Breaking the Silence, that Israeli combat units in Gaza use Palestinian civilians as human shields, sending them into buildings ahead of them in order to trigger any potential booby traps. 'You're in this really high-adrenaline kind of environment, and you're always scared,' Carmel said. 'You're going into all sorts of places where you're risking your life and then you have the downtime between missions that you go out on. 'During that time, they, the human shields, the Palestinians, were with them, and they were basically handcuffed and blindfolded and stayed with them in the houses that they were occupying in Gaza, which they turned into makeshift posts. 'And then, in order to go to the toilet, because they're handcuffed and blindfolded, the soldiers needed to take down the zipper and take down their trousers. 'And he said there was something about the aesthetics of that that was so shocking.' Carmel said that when news of the IDF using human shields came out in Israel, a common retort was 'This is nothing, Hamas uses human shields all the time'. Israel consistently accuses Hamas of using human shields in Gaza by embedding in built-up areas and digging tunnels beneath civilian infrastructure, something Carmel has 'no doubt' they do. He also makes a point of noting that the Israeli military headquarters is in a residential area in the centre of Tel Aviv. Unwelcome points of view Speaking out publicly about the harsh reality of the occupation and blowing the whistle on crimes committed during wars does not go down well with much of Israeli society, and the government especially. 'So there are various people who have distanced themselves from me, that's for sure,' Carmel said of the personal consequences that have come with taking up the anti-occupation cause. I'm lucky to have a supportive family. I'd say at least my nuclear family are very supportive. 'A lot of my cousins on my mother's side are settlers, or they come from settlements and they live in other places now, but they are settlers and yeah, it's very uncomfortable.' All the same, 'we found a way to live'. For Breaking the Silence, Israeli society is a hostile environment. 'I think, in terms of our organisation, it's very difficult for the government and for the State of Israel to have us, because we are speaking truth to power and we're doing the work of the opposition,' Carmel explained, 'because our opposition is very, very weak in Israel.' 'So we're kind of the extra-parliamentary opposition and so part of the attempts by the government are to make it harder for us to do our work. 'This has been going on for years, and there's been all sorts of rounds of different kinds of measures they've tried to take against us. In 2018, the government introduced the Breaking the Silence law, which was designed 'to distance us from schools so we wouldn't be able to talk to young people', Carmel said. He described this as 'amazing' because 'when they turn 18, they go to the army, but no one wants to tell them what they're going to be facing'. Israeli citizens – with few exceptions – have to do mandatory military service. The latest round of hostility towards the organisation is a bill that would impose heavy taxes on donations to NGOs from abroad. The proposed law would impose an 80% tax on NGOs that receive the majority of their funding from foreign entities, but the finance minister would be able to exempt some organisations. Carmel described this as an attack on left-wing organisations because they receive money from abroad that has to be publicly declared. 'But the right also get their funding from abroad, but from private and often very shady sources which don't have to face any kind of transparency regulations,' he said. 'Whereas we get a lot of our funding from state backed donors, like Trócaire, which gets its funding from Irish Aid.' This kind of funding needs to be declared publicly because governments want to know where their money is going, Carmel explained. The hostility from the state towards NGOs mirrors that of some European countries, like Hungary and Georgia, and Carmel says Israel is often compared to Russia in this regard. 'Basically our lawyers are telling us if this (bill) goes through, the best way to deal with it is basically to move everything abroad. 'But we don't want to be like the Russians, we don't want to be dissidents working from outside of Israel. The whole point is that we believe in working with Israeli society. 'We believe in working with the international community too, but we want to change from within and without, and we want to be connected to what's going on on the ground, because we're former soldiers, we're part of the system. 'So we believe that we need to be in conversation with Israelis all the time, and that's exactly what the government is trying to prevent.' Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Learn More Support The Journal
RTÉ News
an hour ago
- RTÉ News
Iran launches more missiles as Israel targets Tehran
Iran launched a new wave of missiles at Israel, wounding several people in residential buildings, while Israel said it was striking Iranian targets. The fresh attacks came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to hit "every target of the ayatollah regime", and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian warned further strikes would draw "a more severe and powerful response". As calls for de-escalation grew, a new round of nuclear talks between the United States and Iran were cancelled, with Iran saying it could not negotiate while under attack from Israel. Israel's operation, which began early Friday, has targeted Iran's air defences and hit key nuclear and military sites, killing dozens of people including top army commanders and atomic scientists, according to Iranian officials. Israel said it was simultaneously working to intercept a new salvo of missiles fired from Iran, while also carrying out strikes on "military targets in Tehran". Iranian news agency Tasnim reported that an Israeli strike had targeted the country's defence ministry headquarters in Tehran and damaged one of its buildings. The ministry did not comment. Iran, meanwhile, announced a "new wave" of attacks targeting Israel. Israel's emergency services said an Iranian missile hit a home in the Haifa region, leaving 14 people injured, including one in critical condition. Israeli strikes meanwhile hit two fuel depots in Tehran, the Iranian oil ministry said. According to the oil ministry, the oil depots at Shahran northwest of Tehran and another reservoir south of the city were hit. 'Every site, every target' Iran's UN ambassador said 78 people were killed and 320 wounded in Friday's first wave of Israeli strikes. Israel said three people were killed and 76 wounded by Iran's drone and missile barrage the night before. Mr Netanyahu has vowed to keep up Israel's campaign. "We will hit every site, every target of the ayatollah regime," he said in a video statement, threatening greater action "in the coming days". The Israeli leader added that their campaign had dealt a "real blow" to Iran's nuclear programme and maintained it had the "clear support" of US President Donald Trump. Mr Trump said he and Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed in a phone call that the conflict between Iran and Israel "should end". Mr Pezeshkian said meanwhile that "the continuation of the Zionist aggression will be met with a more severe and powerful response from the Iranian armed forces". According to a statement from his office, Mr Pezeshkian also condemned the US for their "dishonesty" for supporting Israel while engaged in nuclear talks with Iran. Western governments have repeatedly accused Iran of seeking a nuclear weapon, which it denies. Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, said the Israeli attacks undermined negotiations and were pushing the region into a "dangerous cycle of violence". Foreign concern After decades of enmity and conflict by proxy, it is the first time the arch-enemies have traded fire with such intensity, triggering fears of a prolonged conflict that could engulf the Middle East. Highlighting the unease, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned against a "devastating war" with regional consequences, in a call with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkey said. Israeli strikes have hit Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment plant and killed its highest-ranking military officer, Mohammad Bagheri, as well as the head of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hossein Salami. The Israeli military said its strikes had killed more than 20 Iranian commanders. Iranian media reported five Guards killed in Israeli strikes, while authorities in one northwestern province said 30 military personnel had been killed there since Friday. Iran's Red Crescent said an ambulance was hit yesterday in Urmia city, killing two. Iran called on its citizens to unite in the country's defence, while Netanyahu urged them to rise up against against the government. Iran's Mehr news agency said Iran had warned Britain, France and the United States it could retaliate if they came to Israel's defence. 'Everything was shaking' AFP images from the city of Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv showed blown-out buildings, destroyed vehicles and streets strewn with debris after Iran's first wave of attacks. Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they had struck dozens of targets in Israel. One Iranian missile wounded seven Israeli soldiers, the military said. In Tehran, fire and heavy smoke billowed over Mehrabad airport, an AFP journalist said. The Israeli army said it had struck an underground military facility in western Iran's Khorramabad that contained surface-to-surface and cruise missiles. Iranian media also reported a "massive explosion" following an Israeli drone strike on an oil refinery in the southern city of Kangan. The attacks prompted several countries to temporarily ground air traffic, with Jordan again shutting its airspace last night after it had briefly reopened it.
RTÉ News
2 hours ago
- RTÉ News
Trump's military parade kicks off as protests sweep US
US President Donald Trump kicked off his long dreamt-of military parade in Washington on his 79th birthday, as tens of thousands of protesters rallied across the country to call him a dictator. Mr Trump saluted after walking onto a huge stage in front of the White House, with two huge tanks parked nearby, while a 21-gun salute rang out and the national anthem played. The parade, officially marking the 250th anniversary of the US Army but also coinciding with Mr Trump's birthday, was set to feature tanks, a flyover and nearly 7,000 troops marching past. However, the deep political divisions in the United States were underscored as "No Kings" demonstrators earlier took to the streets in cities including New York, Los Angeles, Washington, Houston and Atlanta. The killing of a Democratic politician and her husband in Minnesota also cast a pall over the parade. Mr Trump was quick to condemn the attacks outside Minneapolis in which former state speaker Melissa Hortman died along with her husband, while another state politician and his wife were hospitalized with gunshot wounds. The "No Kings" demonstrators were protesting what they call Mr Trump's dictatorial overreach, and in particular what they call the strongman symbolism of the biggest parade in Washington for decades. "I think it's disgusting," protester Sarah Hargrave, 42, told AFP at a protest in the Washington suburb of Bethesda, describing Mr Trump's parade as a "display of authoritarianism." Republican Trump, who has begun his second term by pushing presidential powers to unprecedented levels, boasted earlier on his Truth Social network that it was a "big day for America!!!" He added that Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, for whom he has repeatedly expressed admiration, had "very nicely" called him to wish him a happy birthday. The two leaders also agreed on the need for an end to the Iran-Israel conflict - a war in which US forces are aiding Israel to shoot down Iran's missiles. Political violence The "No Kings" protest organisers expected millions of people to take part in 1,500 cities in the rest of the country. Some protesters targeted Mr Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida - while a small group even gathered in Paris. Thousands turned out in Los Angeles to protest Mr Trump's deployment of troops in the country's second-largest city following clashes sparked by immigration raids. The White House dismissed the rallies. "The so-called No Kings protests have been a complete and utter failure with minuscule attendance," White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said in a post on X, despite photos of large crowds in a number of cities. Mr Trump had promised to use "very big force" if protesters attempted to disrupt the army parade in Washington. However, disruption could also come from thunderstorms forecast to hit Washington as the parade continues. The US president put on a brave face, saying on Truth Social: "Our great military parade is on, rain or shine. Remember, a rainy day parade brings good luck. I'll see you all in DC." $45 million The military parade is the biggest in US since the end of the Gulf War in 1991, estimated by the army to cost up to $45 million (€39 million). Soldiers will wear uniforms dating back through US history to its independence from Britain as they march past landmarks including the Washington Monument to end up at the White House. Mr Trump has been obsessed with having a parade since his first term as president when he attended France's annual Bastille Day parade in Paris at the invitation of President Emmanuel Macron. Critics have accused Mr Trump of acting like autocrats in Russia or North Korea. California's Governor Gavin Newsom, who slammed Mr Trump for sending National Guard troops into Los Angeles without his consent, called it a "vulgar display of weakness".
