Defending the Indefensible

Before our very eyes, the Resistance Left is morphing into a suicide pact

Columbia University: free speech with National Socialist features

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In his book, Why Orwell Matters, the late Christopher Hitchens used a term to which I responded with raised eyebrows: “the moral grandeur of the Left.” Even with the best will in the world, one cannot accept that characterization of the Left without some pretty extensive qualifications.

Times have changed, of course, and today’s Left, broadly construed, is not what it was in Orwell’s day. “Scientific socialism” having been unmasked as a fraud, the contemporary Left is more of a postmodern cultural phenomenon, which is not to imply that it’s an improvement on the variants of twentieth-century communism. In some ways, indeed, it’s worse—very reminiscent of Ingsoc, the fictional ideology that Mr. Orwell invented for Nineteen Eighty-four. Today’s Left may best be characterized as the mobilization of moral depravity, buttressed by arguments that are entirely of the moment and instantly disposable: the very definition of doublethink.

We have before us now a prize example of this morally depraved postmodern leftism: its embrace and defense of the odious Mahmoud Khalil, the Doctor Goebbels of the campus intifada at Columbia University.

Khalil, a resident alien and green card holder, has been in America for a couple of years now. Until recently he was a graduate student at Colombia, though most of his time seemed to have been taken up with the “anti-Zionist,” i.e. antisemitic, activities of the Columbia branch of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). These activities included vandalism, disruption of classes, illegal occupations of buildings, harassment of and attacks on Jewish students, and open advocacy of genocide and Islamofascist terrorism.

One of Donald Trump’s campaign promises to the American people was that if elected, he would crack down on campus antisemitism and defend the civil rights of American Jews. Due to its utterly disgraceful record on the issue, Columbia came in for early attention after Trump assumed office, and so did Mahmoud Khalil. Last week he was detained by ICE pending deportation on the order of the Secretary of State, who has legal authority to remove resident aliens from the country under certain circumstances.

Naturally, the Left has rallied to his defense.

Reading some news reports about his case, you might gather the impression that Khalil is an “activist” who is fighting for “Palestinian rights.” You might assume that the green card is some kind of miraculous medal that shields resident aliens from the consequences of their bad behavior. And you might also assume that what the Trump Administration is doing is illegal—because what about the First Amendment?!

None of that is true.

To deal with the last point first, the legal authority to deport the likes of Khalil does exist, and in that context the First Amendment is irrelevant. His right to remain in America is contingent on good behavior.

As for Khalil himself, an accurate description of his “activism” would include such details as his open support for Hamas and Hezbollah, which have been designated as terrorist organizations by the US government. Both are virulently antisemitic and anti-American. During its 10/7/23 pogrom, among the hostages taken by Hamas were a number of American citizens, some of whom have been murdered. Hezbollah also has American blood on its hands, including that of the 241 U.S. military personnel killed in the bombing of the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, on October 23, 1983. Khalil’s c.v. also includes his own anti-Americanism and antisemitism, made manifest by his role as spokesman for Columbia SJP and its representative in “negotiations” with the university administration. In short, he’s a bad actor, complicit in all the illegal activities of Columbia SJP.

But in the telling of his leftie defenders, Mahmoud Khalil is a civil rights martyr and First Amendment hero:

Example One

So what is the crime? If he committed a crime, then prosecute him. Otherwise you’re just detaining someone without due process like they do in a police state. And forgive me if I don’t trust Trump to use this power responsibly. Also, he already set the standard for the bounds of acceptable protest by pardoning every single 1/6 rioter. He said they’re heroes. The rules the Trump administration is attempting to impose are clear. Fuck the Constitution. If you riot and commit violence for him he’ll pardon you. If you promote a cause he opposes, then you can be pulled off the street and detained without even having committed any alleged crime at all.

Example Two

If this were the Biden administration and noncitizen Jordan Peterson were seized, kept from lawyers, sent to a blue state with pliant judges and then deported because Tony Blinken said that although he hasn’t committed a crime, his views adversely affect the foreign policy of the US—how long do you think it would be before the free speech right objected?

And if the Biden administration said it was going to use AI to trawl through social media to find anyone saying similar things to Peterson who could be deported as well, do you think the anti-censorship right would have said nothing?

Masks are falling.

Masks are falling indeed. I trust that the bad faith embodied in the above comments, which come from a Notes thread in which I was involved, is evident. Especially choice is this line from Example One: “If you promote a cause he [Trump] opposes, then you can be pulled off the street and detained without even having committed any alleged crime at all.” The “cause” that Trump opposes in this context is advocacy and support for Islamofascist terrorism and genocide. That’s objectionable? As for the appeal to Trump’s hypocrisy, it’s simply irrelevant. The implied claim that since he was wrong in one instance he must be wrong in this instance is risible. And indeed, later in the discussion this interlocutor went off on the usual Orange Man Bad Resistance rant.

Then, in Example Two, came the Jordan Peterson argument: “If this were the Biden administration and noncitizen Jordan Peterson were seized, kept from lawyers, sent to a blue state with pliant judges and then deported…” Excuse me? The last time I checked, Jordan Peterson, however annoying he may be in the eyes of the comrades, has never supported terrorism. That’s pretty lame as a counterfactual, but how about this one? Suppose that Khalil and SJP were targeting “students of color” instead of Jews? Would the Left step up to the defense of their First Amendment rights?

Don’t make me laugh.

But really, the Left’s defense of this terrorist-supporting, Jew-bashing, garbage human being is irresistibly laughable: It’s a defense based on the First Amendment, which the comrades disregard whenever it pleases them to do so. This goes back to the point I made earlier: The principles of the postmodern Left are entirely of the moment. They have the flexibility of Silly Putty. As we saw during the pandemic, freedom of speech is impermissible in the eyes of the Left when it contradicts approved narratives and orthodoxies. And from this we can only conclude that the Left has no problem with the campus intifada’s hymn of hate. While questioning the efficacy of social distancing may be impermissible, antisemitism is just fine.

So much then, for the moral grandeur of the Left.

As a matter of practical politics, however, I can only applaud its suicidal embrace of a position that has, shall we say, no real constituency. The attempted transformation of Mahmoud Khalil into a Hero of the Resistance is of a piece with the Left’s fatal attraction for the -20 side of 80-20 issues, e.g. on DEI and gender ideology. Trump and the Republican Party have been handed a large club with which to beat the Democrats, who have foolishly signed on with Team Khalil. DEMOCRATS DEFENDING THE INDEFENSIBLE: The 2026 campaign commercial practically produces itself.