New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani was criticized for attending a Gracie Mansion breakfast with Mahmoud Khalil and his family, which also marked the one-year anniversary of Khalil’s detention. Mamdani said he and his wife Ram Duwaji were honored to welcome Mahmoud Khalil, his wife Noor and their son Deen to the mayor’s residence to break their fast together. Mamdani posted a photo and wrote, “Mahmood is a New Yorker and he is a resident of New York City.” He posted a picture in which Mahmood Khalil can be seen smiling at the breakfast table.“A year ago, Mahmoud was walking home through our city after having iftar with his wife, Nour, when he was detained by federal agents, taken to Louisiana, and then held in an ICE facility for months. At that time, he was forced to miss the birth of his first child. All for exercising his First Amendment rights in protest of the ongoing genocide in Palestine,” the NYC mayor posted. The post read, “And yet, even in the face of that brutality, there has been beauty. New Yorkers are raising their voices in solidarity. A city that refuses to look away. Mahmoud regained his freedom, and a father finally reunited with his child.” MAGA activist Laura Loomer called it ‘disgraceful’ and called the NYC mayor a national security threat. “Are you going to invite Amir Balat to your home too?” one wrote, referring to the arrest of two ISIS supporters who tried to detonate an explosive device in front of Mamdani’s residence during a protest. “As a Jewish New Yorker I am deeply offended by this photo. This man harassed Jewish students and is anti-Semitic! How can you think it would be okay to post this photo on government social media?? As an advocate for the Jewish community I apologize immediately!!!” Another wrote. “This is incredibly offensive to the Jewish community as Mahmoud Khalil has aggressively harassed Jewish students on campus for the past nearly 3 years. Whether you agree with his deportation or not, his behavior was abhorrent and should not be celebrated by the mayor,” wrote the CEO of the Jewish organization Aish.
One year since Mahmoud Khalil’s ICE arrest
Mahmoud Khalil was picked up by ICE inside the Columbia University campus on March 8 last year. He was a leader and negotiator of the pro-Palestine protests at Columbia University. While federal authorities tried to deport him, he was released from custody by court order. “It’s been a full year now. It’s been a year since that fateful night that marked the beginning of a brutal wave of arrests targeting protesters for doing nothing but speaking the truth. Although we have never met in person, ever since Nour called me when I was detained in Jena, Louisiana, to tell me you were taken, I take you with me every day. I remember thinking: Not again, in our To no one else. From that moment on, a piece of my heart belonged to your struggle,” Khalil wrote for The Guardian. The one-year anniversary of his detention.“I am free, but I am not free. I carry that detention center in Jena with me. I carry with me my fellow captives – Alex, Ziad, Marcel, Juan and Mamuki. I carry with me the cold and the fluorescent lights. I carry with me the night they came for me and the night I walked out and every night in between. And I carry with me the knowledge that while I’m here, other people are still out there. My freedom. Partial as long as someone is caged for the same reasons I was caged,” Khalil wrote.