Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil used a high-profile South by Southwest stage to denounce as very racist any demand that he, as a Palestinian, condemn the Hamas terrorist organization.
During the Sunday featured session in Austin, Texas, Guardian U.S. editor Betsy Reed pressed Khalil to explain why he refused to denounce Hamas in a July CNN interview, a question he again brushed aside as disingenuous and absurd, according to the Washington Free Beacon. Reeds query prompted Khalil to accuse Western media and political figures of applying a discriminatory standard to Palestinians who are asked to distance themselves from the Iran-backed group responsible for the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel.
It's very racist to ask a Palestinian this question just to validate their views, Khalil declared from the SXSW stage. I don't see them asking any Israeli or American politician about condemning all the killing that's happeningwhether in Lebanon and Palestine and Iran, anywhere.
He went on to portray himself and his allies as victims of bias rather than as apologists for terrorism. That sort of hypocrisy and double standards that's being used against us [sic], he continued. I refuse to be part of that, and they would never answer such a question.
The session, which also featured his attorney Baher Azmy, was billed as an exploration of the cost of dissent and framed Khalil as a persecuted dissident. It promised an unflinching conversation on his ordeal, the system that tried to silence him, and the personal and political stakes of resistance, according to the event description written by the Guardian and posted on SXSWs website.
By placing Khalil at the center of a marquee event, SXSW handed the anti-Israel organizer a powerful megaphone at one of the countrys most influential cultural and political gatherings. The Austin festival, backed by major corporate sponsors such as Sams Club, Rivian, and Carnival, drew more than 300,000 attendees and nearly 400,000 YouTube views in 2025, with full-access passes costing as much as $2,095.
Confronted with criticism over the decision to spotlight a man who has repeatedly refused to condemn Hamas, SXSW directed the Free Beacon to a statement from senior vice president of programming Greg Rosenbaum that had been provided to the Austin American-Statesman. While many people, including us, may strongly disagree with some of the views, the reality is that expressing some of those views in a country with free speech protections led him to be imprisoned, Rosenbaum said.
That doesn't mean we support what he says, but it does mean that there's a broader conversation that's worth having about speech, disagreement and the consequences people face for expressing controversial ideas, Rosenbaum added. His remarks underscored a familiar pattern in progressive cultural institutions, which increasingly invoke free speech to justify elevating radical anti-Israel voices while often showing far less tolerance for conservative dissent.
On stage, Khalil complained that there is a double standard in how the media and political class discuss Hamass Oct. 7 atrocities. He cast criticism of his refusal to condemn the terror group as part of a broader campaign to censor any speech that can be remotely critical of the Israeli government.
You can never justify violence. You can never justify October 7, he said, before quickly pivoting to blame Israel and its allies. But to them ... but October 7 justifies everything after, which, to me, is again, like that double standard.
Khalil insisted that efforts to hold him accountable for his rhetoric and activism are really attempts to suppress debate. These are all deliberate attempts to silence people, he added. It's easier for them to silence me than to actually engage in the conversation about what's happening, and that's what we're seeing now especially when it comes to Israel's attempt to censor the First Amendment in this country.
His SXSW appearance is only the latest example of prominent progressive figures and institutions embracing him despite his record of inflammatory statements and ties to extremist causes. Earlier this month, Khalil was seen dining with New York City lawmaker Zohran Mamdani (D.) and Mamdanis wife, Rama Duwaji, just days after reports that Duwaji had liked Instagram posts celebrating the Oct. 7 attacks and dismissing reports of mass rape of Israeli women as a mass rape hoax.
Khalil, a Syrian-born Algerian national, rose to prominence on Columbias campus in the immediate aftermath of Hamass Oct. 7 assault, becoming a leading voice in the universitys anti-Israel movement. He served as a negotiator during the April 2024 encampments on behalf of Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), a radical student coalition that called for death to America following Operation Epic Fury, the joint U.S.-Israel military response to Iran.
His activism extended beyond negotiations into direct action that repeatedly crossed legal lines. Khalil took part in a series of unlawful protests, including the storming of Barnard Colleges library, where CUAD agitators distributed Hamas propaganda and further inflamed tensions on campus.
Speaking to reporters during that period, Khalil made clear that his objective was to force Columbia to sever ties with the Jewish state by any means necessary. He vowed that he and his movement would pressure the university to divest from Israel by any available means necessary.
The Trump administration moved against Khalil in March 2025, detaining him and revoking both his visa and green card in a rare but decisive use of immigration authority against a pro-Hamas activist. A State Department official told the Free Beacon at the time that, under this administration, if you support terror groups, we will deport you.
In September, an immigration judge found that Khalil had willfully misrepresented his campus activism and his work for the Hamas-linked United Nations Relief and Works Agency on his green card application at the time of the Oct. 7 attacks. That ruling bolstered the administrations case that Khalil had not only embraced extremist causes but also misled U.S. authorities about his activities.
Although he has since been released pending further legal proceedings, the Trump administration has stated it intends to rearrest and deport him following a favorable appeals court ruling. In the interim, Khalil has used his freedom to continue promoting a narrative that blames Israel and the United States for anti-Semitic violence and terrorism.
During a June appearance on ABC News, he described a wave of anti-Jewish attacks as a direct result of the U.S. unconditional [sic] support to Israel and characterized the assaults as desperate attempts to be heard. He later told New York Times columnist Ezra Klein that we couldn't avoid such a moment as Oct. 7 and asserted that Hamas launched the massacre to break the cycle, to break that Palestinians are not being heard.
Khalil referred the Free Beacon to his spokeswoman when asked for comment on his SXSW remarks and ongoing activism, but she did not immediately respond. As elite festivals, corporate sponsors, and progressive politicians continue to elevate figures like Khalil, Americans are left to weigh whether the banner of free speech is being used to normalize open hostility toward Israel and to excuse those who refuse to clearly repudiate terrorist violence.
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