
Friend,
Columbia student activist and legal permanent resident, Mahmoud
Khalil, was just abducted by ICE for exercising his constitutionally
protected rights to free speech and assembly. He should be home with
his wife who is 8 months pregnant — not missing in ICE detention,
unreachable by his lawyers.1
The White House's authoritarian actions are being falsely done in
the name of Jewish safety and preying on legitimate Jewish fear about
antisemitism. But this administration, which endangers Jewish
life with Nazi salutes and its ties to the white nationalist movement,
does not speak for us.
We’ve been afraid this day would come since campus protests began.
Now is the time for Jews and allies to declare that this is not the
way to Jewish safety.
Sign
the petition from American Jews: We demand ICE release Mahmoud
Khalil.
I understand how damaging antisemitism is for Jewish people, for
this country, and for all of us — no matter where it comes from. But
let’s be clear: Mahmoud Khalil’s abduction does nothing to make
Jews safer.
It’s actually part of a right-wing plan to shred the
liberties of all Americans: Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Black, brown
and white. Trans, queer, straight. Citizen, resident, immigrant.
Everybody.
And it’s a blatant example of how this administration uses
antisemitism as a smokescreen to enact its plans to bully,
blame, and ban people — plans that have nothing to do with Jewish
people or our safety.2
Add
your name to the rapid response petition from American Jews: release
Mahmoud Khalil now.
If this administration cared
about Jewish people or wanted to end antisemitism, it would be
upholding our freedoms to speak, study, and stand up for what we
believe in — and it wouldn’t be filled with politicians who actively
use antisemitism. We are calling Trump's bluff.
The way we actually end antisemitism is by locking arms
across religion, race, immigration status, and gender and insisting
that freedom and safety is for all of us — no exceptions.
In solidarity,
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