In NPR’s recent charm offensive, “Mahmoud Khalil takes deportation case to the Supreme Court” (June 4, 2026), host Leila Fadel added to the news organization’s library of soft or sympathetic interviews of perpetrators, leaders, and supporters of Palestinian terrorism.
NPR presented Mahmoud Khalil as the victim of a government crackdown on “pro-Palestine speech.” Because the speech in question was never discussed, listeners understood neither the havoc Khalil wreaked on Columbia’s campus nor his shared vision with Hamas: the eradication of the Jewish State.
NPR also hid the posture of Khalil’s legal proceedings. In September 2025, Judge Jamee Comans ordered Khalil deported for omissions on his green card application, including working for United Nations Refugee Works Agency (UNRWA). In a separate lawsuit Khalil filed against the government, a court recently ruled he needed to fully exhaust the immigration court process first. Khalil is allowed to stay in the U.S. while he waits to see if the U.S. Supreme Court will hear his case.
Fadel said Khalil was being accused of being an antisemite and Hamas supporter for leading student protests at Columbia University “against Israel’s war in Gaza” and passing out Hamas flyers. Khalil neither addressed nor denied passing out flyers but said he “challenge[d] them to present any piece of evidence” to link him to Hamas or other groups. He also denied saying anything antisemitic, but reminded listeners that even if he had, his speech was protected under the First Amendment.
Fadel was too busy hosting Khalil’s pity party to illuminate what the not-antisemitic-according-to-Khalil, “pro-Palestine,” protected speech was. The softball interview was worked to garner sympathy by obscuring Khalil’s conduct and affiliations in the aftermath of the Hamas-led invasion and massacre in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
On that day, Khalil was a graduate student at Columbia University and a political affairs officer for UNRWA. Presently, at least 1,500 UNRWA staff are suspected of terror links. Several are known to have participated directly or assisted in the atrocities of October 7 and at least one Israeli hostage was held at a Gaza UNRWA facility.
Days later, Khalil was recorded leading an Arabic chant, “From water to water, Palestine will be Arab,” and the English version (better known, rhyming, and less genocidal-sounding to western ears), “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
On Oct. 12, 2023 Khalil led chants @Columbia that included “from water to water, Palestine will be Arab”(in Arabic), while the Jewish students, staff, and faculty were grieving on the other lawn. We didn’t know who he is but were still shocked. The facts are very different from… https://t.co/3jiqthUpOR pic.twitter.com/MFS68h6DDv
— columbiafsi (@columbiafsi) April 7, 2026
Khalil served as the lead negotiator for Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), formed in 2016 as an umbrella to many student organizations, including Palestine Working Group, of which Khalil was co-president, and Students for Justice in Palestine, before Columbia banned it in November 2023.
CUAD was involved with the illegal encampment and violent takeover of Hamilton Hall. Its Substack posts read like an English-language Gen Z Hamas blog, with tributes to Yahya Sinwar, glorification of martyrdom, propaganda and more. At CUAD’s sponsored events, Hamas propaganda was distributed, reportedly including by Khalil. At one event, Khalil aligned with Hamas when he said, “We’ve tried armed resistance, which is legitimate under international law.”
Video screenshot of Mahmoud Khalil’s comments at a CUAD event. Credit: Canary Mission
And in a largely sympathetic interview with The Forward, Khalil refused to admit that Hamas targeted civilians on October 7.
Instead of discussing any of this or why he repeatedly refused to condemn Hamas, listeners heard part of a flowery essay Khalil wrote, detailing the precautions he takes to leave his home safely. He wears sunglasses and a different color baseball cap every day, and rides in the last, least crowded subway car, keeping his head down to avoid recognition.
The irony of Khalil’s feeling he needs to hide was lost on him. It was his actions that facilitated an environment at Columbia so toxic, hostile and unsafe for the entire student body that classes and final exams went remote. Jewish students went into hiding.
Khalil also focuses full-time on his “legal battles,” but was not asked what he meant. In addition to immigration-related proceedings, Khalil is being civilly sued for serving as an arm of Hamas individually and as a CUAD representative. One former-hostage-plaintiff alleged his Hamas captors told him they provided financial support to CUAD and had operatives on campus.
Khalil said he fears both ICE and assassination, so he does not go out alone with his 13-month-old son. Fadel asked Khalil how he celebrated his son’s first birthday. The two chuckled at how most of the 70 birthday party guests were lawyers. The host concluded the interview by asking what Khalil will tell his son in the future. He said he hopes his son will see him as an advocate for Palestinian rights and won’t be involved in any Palestine protests. “Hopefully,” he said, “by then, our rights – like, the occupation ends. We have our rights.”
The carefully curated interview left listeners unaware of Khalil’s Hamas support. The substance of the “pro-Palestine” speech that the government was “policing” should have been discussed as a major part of the interview. Plus, NPR never tested Khalil over what he meant by “rights” for Palestinians or “occupation.”
In a New York Times interview, Khalil made his warped views known. In what can only be called gaslighting, he insisted “globalize the intifada” was not a call for violence and that the second intifada – a five-year period of Palestinian terror killing over 1,100 Israelis and injuring over 8,300 – was “overwhelmingly . . . peaceful.” He also dismissed the claim that there was antisemitism at Columbia, calling it largely “manufactured hysteria.”
From The Forward interview, we know Khalil is adamantly opposed to Jews having their own independent state. Khalil’s desire is a “one-state solution.” He wants to eradicate Israel and replace it with a State of Palestine.
Time will tell whether the U.S. Supreme Court will uphold the current court orders. But NPR decided not to uphold its own core principles of integrity, accuracy, or contextual truth when it avoided an opportunity to talk about terror-supporting immigrants living in America in favor of birthday parties and baseball hats.