National Public Radio has a dubious scoop — the first interview of Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi, who has helped lead the pro-Hamas protest movement on campus that cropped up after Hamas massacred and kidnapped hundreds of Israeli citizens in October 2023. Mahdawi has been detained by the government at an immigration office in Vermont and is now under threat of deportation.
NPR left a lot out its fawning online report, credited to Leila Fadel, Jan Johnson and Kaity Kline for Tuesday’s Morning Edition program. The text of the 11-minute radio segment, “Detained on verge of U.S. citizenship, Mohsen Mahdawi speaks from Vermont prison” skipped unflattering facts about Mahdawi gathered by The Washington Free Beacon:
The Beacon emphasized Mahdawi “led a coalition of anti-Israel groups and endorsed the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack,” and who “has also said he ‘can empathize’ with Hamas over the terrorist group’s Oct. 7 slaughter and has publicly called for the destruction of Israel.” (More on Mahdawi’s history of pushing violence against Jews here.)
Instead, NPR led with Mahdawi (whom they claimed is “very vocal in his opposition to antisemitism”) as the purported peacemaker.
The April 14 detention of Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi was caught on video as he flashed a peace sign while being taken from an immigration office in Colchester, Vt. He told NPR’s Morning Edition he’d arrived thinking an interview there would be his final step to becoming a U.S. citizen after 10 years of living and learning in the United States.
Instead, after sitting for a naturalization interview and signing a document pledging allegiance to the U.S. and to protecting and defending the Constitution, he was arrested by masked agents in Homeland Security jackets.
NPR threw in the detail of how “he had been meditating to find calm, as he does every day” (hey, he was even president of the Columbia University Buddhist Association, can’t get any more peaceful than that!).
Monday’s court filing did not provide any evidence of the accusations against Mahdawi in the letter, including those of threatening rhetoric and intimidation of pro-Israeli bystanders….In response to the court filings, Mahdawi’s lawyer, Luna Droubi, said the accusations in the letter are “completely false.” Mahdawi has been very vocal in his opposition to antisemitism.
Has he now? Funny way of showing it.
This subhead introduced one of the interview segments: “On his confidence that justice will prevail.” Ugh. NPR also felt the need to clarify, but not deny, Mahdawi’s phony “genocide” charge against Israel he made during the interview.
Note: Mahdawi calls what is happening in Gaza a genocide. It’s also what Israeli and international human rights groups like B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, and Amnesty International have deemed Israel’s response in Gaza after Hamas attacked Israel. The 2023 assault killed nearly 1,200 people and Hamas took 251 hostages, according to the Israeli government. Israel denies the accusation of genocide.
NPR had the gall to hold up a figure who led Jew-harassing groups on campus as a passionate defender of civil liberties.
Before coming to this country, freedom was just a concept. But the actual experience of freedom of movement to travel among 50 states, freedom to breathe the breeze of the ocean, and to feel your toes in the sand. This is the first place I have experienced this freedom of speech where I will not be actually retaliated against or punished for saying my mind.
NPR’s “Up First” email deceitfully reduced Mahdawi’s situation to benign advocacy.
…The Trump administration is trying to deport them for advocating on behalf of Palestinian rights amid the Israel-Hamas war….
P.S. Hat tip to Ben Shapiro for pointing to this April 16 New York Times headline over a Mahdawi profile: “He Wanted Peace in the Middle East. ICE Wants to Deport Him.”
