The @WashingtonPost Khalil article is a textbook example of media bias: cherry picking "experts" to come to a wrong conclusion ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Friday, March 14, 2025

The @WashingtonPost Khalil article is a textbook example of media bias: cherry picking "experts" to come to a wrong conclusion

The Washington Post's official slogan is "Democracy Dies in Darkness." Outrageously, the newspaper actively contributes to the darkness it claims to dispel.

It writes, "Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest violates First Amendment protections, lawyers say." The article is written by the Post's Sarah Ellison, their "Democracy Reporter."

The article quotes four lawyers. Jeffrey Pyle, First Amendment specialist at Prince Lobel, says Khalil's detention is “as clear a First Amendment violation as any case I’ve ever seen.” Sonja West, First Amendment professor at (University of Georgia Law School, asserts the government “disappeared” Khalil for his speech. Stephen Vladeck, constitutional law professor at Georgetown, labels it a “core” First Amendment case, not fringe. The fourth lawyer quoted is Baher Azmy, from the Center for Constitutional Rights, who is on Khalil’s defense team.

Sarah Ellison started her research from the premise that this is a First Amendment case and only interviewed lawyers with a First Amendment focus.

They didn't interview a single expert on immigration law.

As I've shown, a strong case can be made that Khalil should be deported under existing immigration law because he is a representative of a political, social, or other group that endorses or espouses terrorist activity. No one can claim he is not a representative of Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) and it is difficult to argue that CUAD does not endorse or espouse terrorist activity. They handed out "newspapers" with an ad showing Hamas embarking on their October 7 pogrom saying "Victory to the Resistance" and they praised the terror attack in Tel Aviv last October that murdered seven civilians.

There are other reasons that examining this case through the lens of the First Amendment is false. Secretary of State Marco Rubio explained this on Wednesday:

When you come to the United States as a visitor, which is what a visa is – which is how this individual entered this country, on a visitor’s visa – as a visitor, we can deny you that visa. When you tell us when you apply, ‘Hi, I’m trying to get into the United States on a student visa. I am a big supporter of Hamas, a murderous, barbaric group that kidnaps children, that rapes teenage girls, that takes hostages, that allows them to die in captivity, that returns more bodies than live hostages,’ if you tell us that you are in favor of a group like this and if you tell us when you apply for your visa, ‘and by the way, I intend to come to your country as a student and rile up all kinds of anti-Jewish student, antisemitic activities, I intend to shut down your universities,’ if you told us all these things when you applied for your visa, we would deny your visa....If you actually end up doing that once you’re in this country on such a visa, we will revoke it, and if you end up having a green card, not citizenship, but a green card as a result of that visa while you’re here doing those activities, we’re going to kick you out. It’s as simple as that. This is not about free speech.

It is journalistic malpractice to characterize this as a free speech issue in an article published a day after the Secretary of State explicitly says why it isn't.

Moreover, the Post also ignores reports of Khalil’s national security investigation, as Rubio notes.

There are other legal issues even beyond Rubio's and my earlier points that transcend free speech. For example, last November, CUAD handed out flyers that, according to some, may be considered material support for a terror organization:

A coalition of anti-Israel student groups at Columbia University distributed pamphlets just outside of the school's Morningside Heights gates encouraging attendees to "get involved" with the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, an anti-Semitic organization recently sanctioned in the United States for providing material support to terrorists. In doing so, the students themselves may have provided support to terrorists, one expert told the Washington Free Beacon.

Members of Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) distributed the pamphlets—which were labeled "CUAD's Guide to Operational Security" and listed an email address associated with CUAD's "collective defense team"—just outside of the campus gates on Tuesday afternoon, sources said.

Similarly, last March, CUAD hosted Khaled Barakat, a leader of the US-designated terror group PFLP, who praised airplane hijackings while his wife from Samidoun praised Hamas tunnels and the October 7 attack itself, as this video shows:

This may all constitute material support for terror, a crime. While some claim this is protected speech, Holder (2010) ruled that coordinated advocacy for a designated terror organization, like platforming a PFLP leader, constitutes material support, not free expression. It is not a slam-dunk but it is definitely a legal issue - one that the Washington Post's "legal experts" completely ignore.

In fact, instead of even noting CUAD's clear and unambiguous support for the most heinous terror attacks, the Post sanitizes them by saying things like "The First Amendment protects the right of citizens and noncitizens alike to criticize government policies and positions. " This is a little worse than criticizing the US government - it is a celebration of, and arguably a call for, murdering Jews.

This indicates that the article is not journalism - it is propaganda that is meant to hide the truth, not shine a light in the darkness.