7 ms·

Palestinian activist arrested by ICE while expecting U.S. citizenship interview

244 points by colinprince 2y ago

aerodog 2y ago
[flagged]
- chimineycricket 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - ashoeafoot 2y ago
    Its the usual anti semitic, disguised as anti israel colonislism , disguised as an open question , asked by someone who us part by a movement that has genocided the whole middle east of all minorities . Its as deeply intellectually dishonest, as the whole "russia is a anti imperal power" tankies were, a narrative ignoring the horrors on the ground and willing to support israeli extremists and sacrifice the Palestinian people as pawns.
    - xg15 2y ago
      Impressive how many things you can read from 2 lines of text.
sjsdaiuasgdia 2y ago
The rule of law is dead in America.
womitt 2y ago
American strong man on the side of genocide, and Russia, wtf
Taniwha 2y ago
Wow! that 1st amendment doesn't really work anymore. When I lived in the US on a green card (for 20 years) I was leary about political activity, there were never any obvious rules against it, and I was in this "taxation without representation" state so had to find outlets other than voting in order to have a say about how my taxes were spent (I'm from NZ where people with green card equivalents are very much allowed to vote) Seems like this guy was doing all the right things, even applying to become a citizen - I guess the american dream has rather soured under an authoritarian government
- dekozaken 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - Gud 2y ago
    Where did he do this? Seems like a pretty serious allegation to make without a solid source.
  - mjburgess 2y ago
    One has to imagine it's vanishingly rare to hear anyone call for "the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims" -- esp. by students at western universities. Expressing support for groups who have taken such actions is not calling for terrorism -- almost every state in the world has engaged in terrorism. Plausibly the CIA's (recent) use of torture prisons and kiddnapping was in large part about terror for political ends. Yet one can express support for the US, and indeed, the CIA in other actions (eg., non-terror actions against military targets). In very many cases today it seems "terrorism" is a political accusation that is used to suppress political expression and as a way around free speech and freedom of assembly laws. It is, I suppose, especially effective when acts of terrorism have recently been committed. The state, in having the prerogative to decide who counts as a terrorist and therefore what kinds of speech count as "support for terrorism" thereby basically grants itself universal licence to suppress any kind of speech it dislikes. In the case of israel/hamas, since gaza has been flattened by military bombardment and has no effective capability to resit or mount any opposition to israel -- speech in support of israel's enemies is particularly powerless. There's bascially nothing anyone can do, let alone as a student. So even to care, at all, what students in universities are saying shows this cannot plausibly be about the actual actions of hamas. The most charitable interpretation of why this is happening is that pro-israeli students and civil society groups (perhaps often leftwing) are engaged in a moral panic about their peers who have turned against israel. And higher-ups in power are responding to this moral panic. The backfire effects from this on US society will be enormous --- lots of people will be asking, "why is the US state engaged in violent actions against students for the sake of another country who is in an extremely powerful position?". Knowing US citizens, I think this will rub a lot of people the wrong way, in the end.
lwansbrough 2y ago
[flagged]
facesonflags 2y ago
https://revealnews.org/podcast/gaza-a-war-of-weapons-and-words/ https://revealnews.org/podcast/gaza-a-war-of-weapons-and-wor... Interviewed here in 12/23.
zombiwoof 2y ago
As a US citizen my only hope is the rest of the world saves us
- BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
  How would they do that?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - palmotea 2y ago
    >> As a US citizen my only hope is the rest of the world saves us > How would they do that? Due to offshoring and outsourcing, perhaps China could choke the US economy until it agrees to become a strong nation by studying Xi? The the GP was probably imagining some liberal savior riding in a white horse, but that ain't gonna happen. Liberals are too weak everywhere.
- wruza 2y ago
  Interestingly, when this happens on the other side of the world, these people are expected to rise and overthrow. Otoh, when it's a local soul at stake… maybe someone else can save it. As a US citizen, aren't you the hope? Not you specifically, but you get the idea. You were the hope in many countries for decades and advocated for peace and democracy everywhere. And the only ones who still have freedom, guns and visibly functioning courts all in the same place.
- aredox 2y ago
  Congratulations, you are now a copy of a Russian citizen: hapless.
  - M95D 2y ago
    It was David Graeber's theory is that the government indoctrinates the people with the ideea that protests won't change anything, even when they actually do. (I wish I could give a quote, but I'm unable to find anything - damn search engines.) I guess he was right.
notepad0x90 2y ago
I earnestly hope enough Americans read and learn from history. The biggest pattern to glean in my opinion is that often when the majority populace realizes some action needs to be taken, it is too late. There is no way around preemptive action (and for clarity, I'm not talking about violence, since that would violate rules here, I mean things like general strikes, forming a new political party, aggressive political ads, consumer activism,etc.. but whatever is needed). You can't do much as an individual, but you can do a lot as a large group. There is real power in numbers, and now more than ever, there is tech that enables unrelated people with common ideals to organize and collaborate. A second lesson history teaches us is that career politicians in power are ineffective when it comes to taking drastic and crucial action. They calculate using outdated variables and formulae. The game has changed and they find it difficult to even accept that fact. They know the stakes are high, but their focus is preservation and restoration of the game, even when have good intentions, they are incapable of protecting what is most important. A certain critical-mass of people that actually like their country and are willing to do whatever it takes to preserve it is needed to prevent a nation from collapsing. If those people expect politicians or some other established official entity to take action, by the time they realize there is no one but them who can take action, it will be too late. The time to act is yesterday.
- ffsm8 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - KittenInABox 2y ago
    Could you specify what actions they are doing that would be classified as criminal 20+ years ago? Mind you that students also occupied academic buildings, sometimes forcefully, during Vietnam war protests.
    - kbelder 2y ago
      >students also occupied academic buildings, sometimes forcefully, during Vietnam war protests. Well, that is criminal.
firesteelrain 2y ago
Mahdawi allegedly supports Hamas. Hamas is officially designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the State Departmemt. This designation means that providing material support to Hamas is a federal crime under US law. Green card holders or anyone in the US can face serious legal and immigration consequences for any form of support or affiliation with Hamas.
- skyyler 2y ago
  There has been a concerted effort to conflate support for Palestinian liberation as the same as support for Hamas. Combined with the successful efforts to make it illegal to boycott Israeli products or companies, it's a grim situation.
- mplanchard 2y ago
  Real question: is there any precedent that simple speech constitutes material support? I don’t particularly think it applies to this case, tbh, given that his actions were focused on Palestine, not on Hamas, but I am curious if there’s any existing legal basis for the claim that someone could be convicted of such material support simply for saying, for example, that the IRA wasn’t unreasonable given the situation at the time.
- aprilthird2021 2y ago
  How does he support Hamas? Does nonviolently supporting the Palestinian people, wanting to learn more about Israelis and find common ground, openly advocate for non-violent solutions as your religion (for him Buddhism) is a nonviolent one (in his words at least). What part of that is Hamas-like to you? Meanwhile an American citizen can actually sign up for and fight in a foreign army, commit war crimes there, and come back here happy as a clam. Insane world we live in.
sharpshadow 2y ago
Where will he be detained at? He can not be send back to his origin country and other countries don’t take people just like that. Will he be detained permanently at Guantanamo?
- rich_sasha 2y ago
  El Salvador presumably. It will probably turn out he is a member of that Salvadorian gang.
firesteelrain 2y ago
[flagged]
- icar 2y ago
  They support the only entity left to fight for their own country against textbook colonialists? Shocked.
  - vorpalhex 2y ago
    You can't call for murdering people - or you get sent home. If burning babies alive and gangraping corpses is your "resistance" then maybe you should let the "colonialists" win.
    - honeybadger1 2y ago
      i don't see a lot of people providing objective observation on this topic, it's all group think hyperbole.
    - pmarreck 2y ago
      I was mainly devils'-advocating, up until this guy. With this guy, I can find no fault. If you watch his 60 Minutes interview, it seems heartfelt and authentic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grj328-hlhA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grj328-hlhA Plus, if he was born Palestinian and is now a Buddhist, that means that he willingly chose to endure the risk of getting killed as an apostate of Islam. Something must be done... at least in his case.
      - vorpalhex 2y ago
        He openly distributed Hamas materials. Not materials supporting Hamas.. materials written by Hamas. He openly called for the destruction of Israel on a speech that was recorded (by many people). He organized several takeovers. He's a 30 year old man who has been attending college for nearly 16 years.
    - za3faran 2y ago
jamesfisher 2y ago
As hackers, what can we do to work against the genocide, unconstitutional arrests, Zionist expansionism, Israeli control of western politics, etc?
- SSLy 2y ago
  sabotage their systems
- kotaKat 2y ago
  Revolt against the companies powering shit like this. Take down the Verints, NSOs, and all the other Unit 8200 scumbags out there.
- honeybadger1 2y ago
  [flagged]
- dekozaken 2y ago
  [flagged]
- pcthrowaway 2y ago
  Get involved with Tech for Palestine
- tasn 2y ago
  Figure out how to dismantle the secret Jewish cabal controlling the world behind the scenes. Read more about them here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of_Zion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_... Seriously though, the Jewish control of the world (now Israeli/Zionist so you don't sound like an antisemite) is one of the most tired antiemetic tropes. Also: Zionist expansionism is a ridiculous term. You do understand that Israel is tiny and has given lands to Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, and Egypt for peace. Open the map and try to locate Israel on the map, it's a speck around a sea of huge countries. Even if Zionist expansionism was a thing, and Israel doubled in size it would still be tiny. The other claims in your post are also weak, and I'd encourage you to learn more about the conflict from different perspectives. This is obviously a loaded topic and both sides are trying to control the narrative, but I believe you've been getting a very specific set information and haven't been exposed to the other side.
dekozaken 2y ago
[flagged]
pmarreck 2y ago
I was mainly devils'-advocating, up until this guy. With this guy, I can find no fault. If you watch his 60 Minutes interview, it seems heartfelt and authentic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grj328-hlhA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grj328-hlhA Plus, if he was born Palestinian and is now a Buddhist, that means that he willingly chose to endure the risk of getting killed as an apostate. Something must be done.
- hellobubba 2y ago
  [dead]
- amdivia 2y ago
  What are you talking about? He's still a Palestine. Palestinians can be Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Buddhists, Atheists, Agnostics, etc.. I believe your comment on "getting killed as an apostate" is highly uneducated. I'm a Palestinian, my family is Muslim, one of my uncles is agnostic. He's alive, he's still part of the family. The case is the same with many families, whether Christian's becoming Muslim, or Muslims becoming agnostic.
  - skyyler 2y ago
    I don't mean this to pry; I am asking from a place of genuine curiosity: You say he's agnostic. Would the situation be any different if he was atheist?
hellobubba 2y ago
[dead]
hellobubba 2y ago
[dead]

244 points by colinprince 2y ago

aerodog 2y ago

[flagged]

chimineycricket 2y ago
[flagged]
- ashoeafoot 2y ago
  Its the usual anti semitic, disguised as anti israel colonislism , disguised as an open question , asked by someone who us part by a movement that has genocided the whole middle east of all minorities . Its as deeply intellectually dishonest, as the whole "russia is a anti imperal power" tankies were, a narrative ignoring the horrors on the ground and willing to support israeli extremists and sacrifice the Palestinian people as pawns.
  - xg15 2y ago
    Impressive how many things you can read from 2 lines of text.

sjsdaiuasgdia 2y ago

The rule of law is dead in America.

womitt 2y ago

American strong man on the side of genocide, and Russia, wtf

Taniwha 2y ago

Wow! that 1st amendment doesn't really work anymore. When I lived in the US on a green card (for 20 years) I was leary about political activity, there were never any obvious rules against it, and I was in this "taxation without representation" state so had to find outlets other than voting in order to have a say about how my taxes were spent (I'm from NZ where people with green card equivalents are very much allowed to vote) Seems like this guy was doing all the right things, even applying to become a citizen - I guess the american dream has rather soured under an authoritarian government

dekozaken 2y ago
[flagged]
- Gud 2y ago
  Where did he do this? Seems like a pretty serious allegation to make without a solid source.
- mjburgess 2y ago
  One has to imagine it's vanishingly rare to hear anyone call for "the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims" -- esp. by students at western universities. Expressing support for groups who have taken such actions is not calling for terrorism -- almost every state in the world has engaged in terrorism. Plausibly the CIA's (recent) use of torture prisons and kiddnapping was in large part about terror for political ends. Yet one can express support for the US, and indeed, the CIA in other actions (eg., non-terror actions against military targets). In very many cases today it seems "terrorism" is a political accusation that is used to suppress political expression and as a way around free speech and freedom of assembly laws. It is, I suppose, especially effective when acts of terrorism have recently been committed. The state, in having the prerogative to decide who counts as a terrorist and therefore what kinds of speech count as "support for terrorism" thereby basically grants itself universal licence to suppress any kind of speech it dislikes. In the case of israel/hamas, since gaza has been flattened by military bombardment and has no effective capability to resit or mount any opposition to israel -- speech in support of israel's enemies is particularly powerless. There's bascially nothing anyone can do, let alone as a student. So even to care, at all, what students in universities are saying shows this cannot plausibly be about the actual actions of hamas. The most charitable interpretation of why this is happening is that pro-israeli students and civil society groups (perhaps often leftwing) are engaged in a moral panic about their peers who have turned against israel. And higher-ups in power are responding to this moral panic. The backfire effects from this on US society will be enormous --- lots of people will be asking, "why is the US state engaged in violent actions against students for the sake of another country who is in an extremely powerful position?". Knowing US citizens, I think this will rub a lot of people the wrong way, in the end.

lwansbrough 2y ago

[flagged]

facesonflags 2y ago

https://revealnews.org/podcast/gaza-a-war-of-weapons-and-words/ https://revealnews.org/podcast/gaza-a-war-of-weapons-and-wor... Interviewed here in 12/23.

zombiwoof 2y ago

As a US citizen my only hope is the rest of the world saves us

BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
How would they do that?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- palmotea 2y ago
  >> As a US citizen my only hope is the rest of the world saves us > How would they do that? Due to offshoring and outsourcing, perhaps China could choke the US economy until it agrees to become a strong nation by studying Xi? The the GP was probably imagining some liberal savior riding in a white horse, but that ain't gonna happen. Liberals are too weak everywhere.
wruza 2y ago
Interestingly, when this happens on the other side of the world, these people are expected to rise and overthrow. Otoh, when it's a local soul at stake… maybe someone else can save it. As a US citizen, aren't you the hope? Not you specifically, but you get the idea. You were the hope in many countries for decades and advocated for peace and democracy everywhere. And the only ones who still have freedom, guns and visibly functioning courts all in the same place.
aredox 2y ago
Congratulations, you are now a copy of a Russian citizen: hapless.
- M95D 2y ago
  It was David Graeber's theory is that the government indoctrinates the people with the ideea that protests won't change anything, even when they actually do. (I wish I could give a quote, but I'm unable to find anything - damn search engines.) I guess he was right.

notepad0x90 2y ago

I earnestly hope enough Americans read and learn from history. The biggest pattern to glean in my opinion is that often when the majority populace realizes some action needs to be taken, it is too late. There is no way around preemptive action (and for clarity, I'm not talking about violence, since that would violate rules here, I mean things like general strikes, forming a new political party, aggressive political ads, consumer activism,etc.. but whatever is needed). You can't do much as an individual, but you can do a lot as a large group. There is real power in numbers, and now more than ever, there is tech that enables unrelated people with common ideals to organize and collaborate. A second lesson history teaches us is that career politicians in power are ineffective when it comes to taking drastic and crucial action. They calculate using outdated variables and formulae. The game has changed and they find it difficult to even accept that fact. They know the stakes are high, but their focus is preservation and restoration of the game, even when have good intentions, they are incapable of protecting what is most important. A certain critical-mass of people that actually like their country and are willing to do whatever it takes to preserve it is needed to prevent a nation from collapsing. If those people expect politicians or some other established official entity to take action, by the time they realize there is no one but them who can take action, it will be too late. The time to act is yesterday.

ffsm8 2y ago
[flagged]
- KittenInABox 2y ago
  Could you specify what actions they are doing that would be classified as criminal 20+ years ago? Mind you that students also occupied academic buildings, sometimes forcefully, during Vietnam war protests.
  - kbelder 2y ago
    >students also occupied academic buildings, sometimes forcefully, during Vietnam war protests. Well, that is criminal.

firesteelrain 2y ago

Mahdawi allegedly supports Hamas. Hamas is officially designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the State Departmemt. This designation means that providing material support to Hamas is a federal crime under US law. Green card holders or anyone in the US can face serious legal and immigration consequences for any form of support or affiliation with Hamas.

skyyler 2y ago
There has been a concerted effort to conflate support for Palestinian liberation as the same as support for Hamas. Combined with the successful efforts to make it illegal to boycott Israeli products or companies, it's a grim situation.
mplanchard 2y ago
Real question: is there any precedent that simple speech constitutes material support? I don’t particularly think it applies to this case, tbh, given that his actions were focused on Palestine, not on Hamas, but I am curious if there’s any existing legal basis for the claim that someone could be convicted of such material support simply for saying, for example, that the IRA wasn’t unreasonable given the situation at the time.
aprilthird2021 2y ago
How does he support Hamas? Does nonviolently supporting the Palestinian people, wanting to learn more about Israelis and find common ground, openly advocate for non-violent solutions as your religion (for him Buddhism) is a nonviolent one (in his words at least). What part of that is Hamas-like to you? Meanwhile an American citizen can actually sign up for and fight in a foreign army, commit war crimes there, and come back here happy as a clam. Insane world we live in.

sharpshadow 2y ago

Where will he be detained at? He can not be send back to his origin country and other countries don’t take people just like that. Will he be detained permanently at Guantanamo?

rich_sasha 2y ago
El Salvador presumably. It will probably turn out he is a member of that Salvadorian gang.

firesteelrain 2y ago

[flagged]

icar 2y ago
They support the only entity left to fight for their own country against textbook colonialists? Shocked.
- vorpalhex 2y ago
  You can't call for murdering people - or you get sent home. If burning babies alive and gangraping corpses is your "resistance" then maybe you should let the "colonialists" win.
  - honeybadger1 2y ago
    i don't see a lot of people providing objective observation on this topic, it's all group think hyperbole.
  - pmarreck 2y ago
    I was mainly devils'-advocating, up until this guy. With this guy, I can find no fault. If you watch his 60 Minutes interview, it seems heartfelt and authentic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grj328-hlhA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grj328-hlhA Plus, if he was born Palestinian and is now a Buddhist, that means that he willingly chose to endure the risk of getting killed as an apostate of Islam. Something must be done... at least in his case.
    - vorpalhex 2y ago
      He openly distributed Hamas materials. Not materials supporting Hamas.. materials written by Hamas. He openly called for the destruction of Israel on a speech that was recorded (by many people). He organized several takeovers. He's a 30 year old man who has been attending college for nearly 16 years.
  - za3faran 2y ago

jamesfisher 2y ago

As hackers, what can we do to work against the genocide, unconstitutional arrests, Zionist expansionism, Israeli control of western politics, etc?

SSLy 2y ago
sabotage their systems
kotaKat 2y ago
Revolt against the companies powering shit like this. Take down the Verints, NSOs, and all the other Unit 8200 scumbags out there.
honeybadger1 2y ago
[flagged]
dekozaken 2y ago
[flagged]
pcthrowaway 2y ago
Get involved with Tech for Palestine
tasn 2y ago
Figure out how to dismantle the secret Jewish cabal controlling the world behind the scenes. Read more about them here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of_Zion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_... Seriously though, the Jewish control of the world (now Israeli/Zionist so you don't sound like an antisemite) is one of the most tired antiemetic tropes. Also: Zionist expansionism is a ridiculous term. You do understand that Israel is tiny and has given lands to Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, and Egypt for peace. Open the map and try to locate Israel on the map, it's a speck around a sea of huge countries. Even if Zionist expansionism was a thing, and Israel doubled in size it would still be tiny. The other claims in your post are also weak, and I'd encourage you to learn more about the conflict from different perspectives. This is obviously a loaded topic and both sides are trying to control the narrative, but I believe you've been getting a very specific set information and haven't been exposed to the other side.

dekozaken 2y ago

[flagged]

pmarreck 2y ago

I was mainly devils'-advocating, up until this guy. With this guy, I can find no fault. If you watch his 60 Minutes interview, it seems heartfelt and authentic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grj328-hlhA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grj328-hlhA Plus, if he was born Palestinian and is now a Buddhist, that means that he willingly chose to endure the risk of getting killed as an apostate. Something must be done.

hellobubba 2y ago
[dead]
amdivia 2y ago
What are you talking about? He's still a Palestine. Palestinians can be Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Buddhists, Atheists, Agnostics, etc.. I believe your comment on "getting killed as an apostate" is highly uneducated. I'm a Palestinian, my family is Muslim, one of my uncles is agnostic. He's alive, he's still part of the family. The case is the same with many families, whether Christian's becoming Muslim, or Muslims becoming agnostic.
- skyyler 2y ago
  I don't mean this to pry; I am asking from a place of genuine curiosity: You say he's agnostic. Would the situation be any different if he was atheist?

hellobubba 2y ago

[dead]

hellobubba 2y ago

[dead]