Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute will host Mohsen Mahdawi as part of a symposium scheduled for September 9 and 10, 2026. The event, titled “The Forever War and the First Amendment,” coincides with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks. One segment features an interview with Mahdawi, a Palestinian-born activist and Columbia graduate student who has become a prominent leader of the pro-Palestinian movement on campus.
This decision arrives barely a year after Columbia agreed to a settlement exceeding $220 million with the federal government over allegations that the university fostered a campus environment hostile to Jewish students and employees. Hosting an individual whose documented record includes explicit calls for the annihilation of Jews, particularly on the eve of the anniversary of the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil, represents a profound institutional failure.
Who Mohsen Mahdawi Is
Mohsen Mahdawi is a Palestinian-born activist who came to the United States from the West Bank in 2014. He became a lawful permanent resident, studied philosophy at Lehigh University, and later transferred to Columbia. He subsequently entered Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. He co-founded the Palestinian Student Union at Columbia alongside Mahmoud Khalil and emerged as a visible leader of campus protests following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel.
Mahdawi has presented himself publicly as an opponent of antisemitism. In a December 2023 60 Minutes interview, he stated that antisemitism is unjust and argued that Palestinian liberation and opposition to antisemitism should go together. He was also recorded at a Columbia protest confronting an individual who made an antisemitic remark. These public statements form part of the image he has cultivated.
A substantial body of historical material attributed to him tells a different story.
The New Evidence Of Explicit Antisemitism
A major investigation published in early September 2026 by researchers David Collier and Rachel Feldman compiled years of Mahdawi’s Arabic-language social-media activity. The reported material is explicit and sustained.
In 2010, Mahdawi allegedly wrote: “Soon, very soon, we will annihilate the Jews.” He reportedly celebrated Palestinian militants involved in attacks on Israelis and referred to them as “our mujahideen.” He praised the founders of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. In 2012, he allegedly advocated armed resistance that would target every place “a Jewish foot has stepped.” Additional posts supporting or glorifying militant organizations and violence appear throughout the compiled record. The investigation states that some of this material continued into 2024, after Mahdawi was already a student at Columbia.
These are not ambiguous political critiques of Israeli policy. They are direct expressions of eliminationist intent toward Jews as a people. The phrase “annihilate the Jews” leaves little room for reinterpretation. Celebrating “mujahideen” who attack Israeli civilians and calling for armed action against every location touched by “a Jewish foot” reflects a worldview that treats Jewish presence itself as the problem to be erased.
This body of material substantially strengthens the characterization of Mahdawi as a passionate antisemite. It is no longer possible to dismiss concerns about his record as mere disagreements over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The 2015 Firearm Allegations
A separate and equally disturbing set of allegations dates to 2015 in Windsor, Vermont. A gun shop owner told police that Mahdawi visited the store twice, expressed interest in purchasing a sniper rifle and an automatic weapon, and stated that he had considerable firearm experience. According to the owner, Mahdawi said he had built modified 9mm submachine guns “to kill Jews while he was in Palestine.” A volunteer at a nearby museum separately reported that Mahdawi stated, “I like to kill Jews.”
Mahdawi denied these allegations when interviewed by the FBI. The investigation was closed without charges. Federal prosecutors later cited the reports in immigration-related filings. These claims remain allegations rather than proven criminal convictions. They must be described as such. At the same time, they form part of a consistent pattern when placed alongside the social-media record compiled by Collier and Feldman.
Campus Conduct & Federal Scrutiny
State Department sources have accused Mahdawi of engaging in antisemitic conduct and intimidation of Jewish students during pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia. This included leading chants widely understood as calling for the elimination of Israel and directing protesters in ways that university officials later acknowledged involved threatening rhetoric and intimidation.
Mahdawi was arrested by immigration authorities in April 2025 when he appeared for a U.S. citizenship interview. The Trump administration sought his deportation, citing his activism and alleged threatening and antisemitic conduct. A Vermont federal judge ordered his release. In July 2026, the Second Circuit reversed that decision on jurisdictional grounds. The appeals court did not rule on whether Mahdawi’s speech was constitutionally protected or whether the government’s allegations were true. His immigration proceedings continue.
The Contradiction & The Institutional Choice
There is a striking contradiction between Mahdawi’s public presentation as a peacemaker who denounces antisemitism and the historical material attributed to his accounts. Public condemnations of antisemitism do not erase prior statements calling for the annihilation of Jews, praise for the founders of designated terrorist organizations, or advocacy of armed resistance against Jewish presence itself.
The Knight First Amendment Institute exists to defend free expression. That mission is legitimate. Defending the legal right to speak, however, is not the same as actively elevating a speaker through a university-affiliated institute on the eve of the September 11 anniversary. Universities make choices about whom to honor with platforms. Those choices reflect values.
Columbia’s recent record makes the decision especially egregious. In 2025 the university reached a settlement exceeding $220 million with the federal government over antisemitism on campus. The agreement included a $200 million payment and an additional $21 million to resolve Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charges involving harassment of Jewish employees after October 7, 2023. The university acknowledged that Jewish students and faculty had experienced painful and unacceptable incidents and that reform was necessary.
Hosting Mahdawi so soon after that settlement, and on dates surrounding the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, signals that the lessons of the settlement have not been internalized. Free speech does not require providing a prestigious platform to an individual whose documented record includes explicit eliminationist rhetoric toward Jews.
Why This Matters
Jewish students and faculty at Columbia have already endured years of heightened tension, exclusion, and fear. Elevating a figure with this particular history compounds that injury. The timing near September 11 intensifies it further. Nearly three thousand people were murdered on that day by Islamist terrorists. Choosing this moment to feature a speaker whose past statements include calls to annihilate Jews is not an act of principled free-speech advocacy. It is a statement of institutional priorities.
Columbia and the Knight First Amendment Institute have the right to invite speakers. The public has the right to judge those invitations. In this case the judgment is clear. One year after paying more than $220 million to resolve antisemitism claims, the university is platforming a man whose own words, according to a detailed investigation of his Arabic-language posts, included the declaration that “soon, very soon, we will annihilate the Jews.” That choice requires no elaborate theory to understand. It is a failure of moral seriousness at an institution that claims to stand for the opposite.
Featured image credit: DepositPhotos.com
