Israel is bombing Gaza again. After weeks of violations — including blocking food and essentials from entering Gaza since March 2 — Israel has completely shattered the ceasefire, martyring at least 413 people in a matter of hours. Just days earlier, the U.S. bombed Yemen, killing 53 people in retaliation for the Houthis targeting Israeli-linked ships after Israel ignored their four-day warning to lift Gaza’s blockade. Instead of holding Israel accountable, the U.S. ensured its ability to starve Palestinians without consequence. The U.S.-Israeli genocide never stopped, and anyone who dares challenge it — abroad or at home — is met with escalating violence. Such is the case for a graduate of Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), Mahmoud Khalil, who remains detained without charge after his activism for Palestine. Keren Yarhi-Milo, Dean of Columbia’s SIPA and a former Israeli spy, helped stoke anti-Palestinian rhetoric on campus, paving the way for Mahmoud’s arrest.

👉 Send a letter to tell Keren Yarhi-Milo: Your job is to educate, not suppress students! 

Last week, you all took action for Mahmoud and sent letters to Katrina Armstrong, the president of Columbia University, demanding Columbia protect its students. Yesterday we went to Columbia to deliver the letter and were denied entry as Columbia’s campus has been on lockdown for a year, barring the public from coming in to express concerns despite being the largest real estate holder in the city. We were stopped by police who spend all day surveilling the university's entrance. Thankfully, thousands of you have already sent this letter directly to her email.

Columbia’s investment in silencing students who care about Palestinian life goes deeper than just succumbing to Trump’s threats to defund universities that allow any space for the issue of genocide to be raised. Its leadership has personal experience in doing so. Keren Yarhi-Milo served as an intelligence analyst for the Israeli occupation forces — her job literally was to spy on Palestinians — and she's now bringing that experience to Columbia's campus. As the U.S. and Israel continue to escalate their brutality in Palestine and Yemen, Columbia’s leadership is doing its part by trying even harder to silence us at home.

👉 Tell Keren Yarhi-Milo: Your job is to protect your students!

No one is safe from a system built on militarization and repression. While racism and Islamophobia are the primary tools used to justify extreme violence, the war machine does not stop there — it is expansionist by nature. On March 7, Fabian Schmidt, a 34-year-old German national with a valid U.S. green card, was detained by immigration officers at Logan Airport in Massachusetts, stripped naked, violently interrogated, and transferred to an ICE detention facility in Rhode Island. So, what does this have to do with Palestine? The same system of oppression arms Israel, bombs Yemen, cracks down on student activists, and humiliates travelers at the U.S. border. It does not matter whether you are Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, or a European with a visa — once a system of repression is built, it does not stay contained.  

The big takeaway? We have got to stand together or the war machine will come for us all.

 👉 Don't miss out:

• Call Columbia University to express your solidarity with Mahmoud Khalil and demand they protect their students!
• Join our next MPM community hour on 4/14!
  
• Sign up to organize and engage locally!
• Order pink keffiyehs from the West Bank!

Until Liberation,

Nour and the entire CODEPINK team