BUZZ
Maybe they were just ‘caught up’ in the kidnapping scheme, he says
Nearly 30 months after Hamas terrorists paraglided into an Israeli music festival, former Columbia University pro-Palestinian roganizer Mahmoud Khalil says he is not quite sure if the group “targeted civilians” for murder, or just kidnapping.
Khalil, a 31-year old former Columbia grad student and encampment organizer, recently spoke to Forward.
“The Jewish people are part of the land and they should remain that way,” Khalil told the magazine. “I want to liberate everyone.”
But despite this stance, Khalil said cannot make a pronouncement on whether Hamas terrorists targeted innocent civilians for killing, an action that would be a direct contrast to Jewish people remaining “part of the land.” Maybe Hamas just wanted to kidnap them as hostages, Khalil suggested and then condemned.
“I wouldn’t say Hamas were saints or angels and did not commit any crimes,” Khalil said. “The fact that civilians were caught up in such violence and the killing means that there were crimes committed, and Hamas has a responsibility for that.”
“I have no idea, to be honest,” he reportedly said when asked if civilians were “targeted” or “caught up in a hostage-taking operation,” by Hamas.
“Hamas, yes, targeted civilians to take them hostage, which is another crime — that doesn’t absolve them of anything like, ‘I want to kidnap them rather than kill them.’ That’s the same, as it turned out later,” he said.
The Jewish magazine points out that even Israeli-critical groups have concluded Hamas targeted civilians for killing:
But while it’s true that Israel has interfered with inquiries into Oct. 7, Khalil’s insistence that it is impossible to know whether Hamas targeted civilians overlooks that several independent investigations have found that it did.
Amnesty International concluded that Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups “were part of a systematic and widespread assault against the civilian population,” while Human Rights Watch determined that Hamas and its allies “bear responsibility for the worst abuses” committed during the attack.
“I wouldn’t rule out that Hamas targeted civilians, but I wouldn’t confirm it either,” Khalil said. “That’s my position on this.”
This is not the only questionable statement from Khalil.
Last July, Khalil said during a CNN interview that it is “absurd” and “disingenuous” to ask him if he condemns the terrorist group Hamas.
“To me, it‘s always, as I said, disingenuous and absurd to ask such questions when literally 62,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel,” he said. “And that‘s why I wouldn‘t really engage much into such questions on condemnation or not. Because selective condemnation wouldn‘t get us anywhere. It’s just like [hypocritical] to be honest.”
A few weeks later, he justified the Hamas attack as necessary to “break the cycle.”
New York Times host Ezra Klein asked Khalil if he believed the Hamas attack aimed to create a conflict in the Middle East by baiting Israel into attacking or if he believed it was meant to “break the equilibrium.”
“I think it’s more the latter, like just to break the cycle. To break that Palestinians are not being heard,” Khalil said.
Khalil has become a rallying point for Democrats who see him as a sign of the Trump administration’s excessive crackdown on foreign students and criticism of Israel.
As the Free Beacon summarized recently:
The Trump administration detained Khalil in March 2025, revoking his visa and green card. An immigration judge in September ruled that Khalil “willfully misrepresented” both his campus activism and work for the Hamas-tied U.N. Relief and Works Agency at the time of the Oct. 7 attack on his green card application. Though Khalil has since been released from custody, the Trump administration has said it plans to rearrest and deport him following an appeals court decision that threw out a separate ruling ordering Khalil’s release.
Khalil is currently living in New York City with his wife and child.
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