Rhiannon Interviews Mahmoud Khalil

Hey y'all, it's Rhiannon.

Just wanted to hop in here and introduce my other podcast, Popular Cradle, to 5-4 listeners.

Popular Cradle is a podcast about Palestine and the struggle for Palestinian liberation from here in the far diaspora.

I am dropping this particular episode of Popular Cradle into the 5-4 feed because I think you 5-4 listeners will really appreciate it because it connects directly with someone we've talked about on the podcast several times now, someone who is a real inspiration to me.

I'm not going to do a duplicative intro here.

You're going to hear all about it.

I'm just going to say, run the tape, and I hope you enjoy this episode of Popular Cradle.

Salute to the free people of the world, the ordinary, all of us here who have given our times, who have given our lives to an extraordinary struggle, the struggle for the liberation of Palestine.

Friends and comrades, welcome to the second annual People's Conference for Palestine.

Salaam, everyone.

Welcome to Popular Cradle.

This is Rhiannon with you today, and we are bringing you a special episode of the podcast coming off of our time at the second annual People's Conference for Palestine in Detroit.

This was a convening of the Palestine Movement hosted by the PYM over Labor Day weekend.

We were lucky enough to go attend the conference and to record some of our time there.

And so this is going to be episode one of a series where we will be taking you with us to the People's Conference and sharing interviews we did with speakers and attendees while we were there.

We're talking about organizers, labor leaders, lawyers, cultural workers, all sorts of folks.

So in this episode, you're going to hear some of my own first impressions of arriving at the People's Conference.

And then we will move into hearing from Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian Columbia University student who was detained by ICE for more than 100 days.

Mahmoud Khalil was a speaker at the conference, so we're going to share some of his remarks to the crowd of thousands of people.

And after his speech, you are going to also hear our exclusive interview with Mahmoud.

So let's start with day one of the conference.

We are at the People's Conference for Palestine in Detroit.

It is Labor Day weekend.

I'm sure folks listening can hear the sound of the crowd in the background.

There were over, I just heard the count, there were over 4,000 registrants for this conference.

It's an amazing, massive group of people here.

And for sure, all of these attendees, I mean, it's People from all over the world who are here, including from Palestine, people from the West Bank and speakers from Gazeh who are going to be virtually attending, virtually speaking on panels.

It's an amazing collective.

I'm a little bit overwhelmed actually at the number of people who are here, the energy that you can feel palpable right now in this massive hall.

So as I'm looking out at this main hall, it is filled with dozens of vendors, people selling goods from Palestine, artists who are selling their work, organizers, bookstores.

There's a VR station for experiencing what Ghaze looks and feels like right now with Bissan from Ghaze.

I was really looking forward, I think, to coming to the conference for this exact feeling, which is being part of a collective,

the proofs in the masses of people who are here that we are part of a massive global majority that stands in solidarity with Palestine, that is focused and dedicated to Palestinian liberation, and that wants to see an end to this genocide.

Not just an end to the genocide, actually, but organizing and pushing and fighting even beyond that for a free and liberated Palestine from the river to the sea.

And you know, when we're in our locales, whether we're organizing or we're just, you know, people going out into the streets and protesting, it can feel really isolating in this moment.

And being at the People's Conference right now, I am feeling exactly like the power of all of us in one space together.

Obviously, not all of us, not everybody in this global majority, but to have an opportunity to convene with people who are in this movement alongside one another, but this proves like really we are shoulder to shoulder in this fight together.

Okay, so we're going to take you into the main hall where all of the plenary panels and the keynote, the keynote addresses are going to take place.

This ballroom space has been renamed this weekend Anas al-Sharif Hall, of course, after the assassinated reporter in Ghazi, Anas al-Sharif.

All of the meeting spaces, all of the speaking rooms, it's been renamed after a prisoner or a martyr of this genocide.

And again, just keeping Gaza as the compass so that in every step of the way, in every aspect of this program, we know that Gaza is what is bringing us all together and Gaza is what we're fighting for.

So as sessions are about to start, as this program is about to open, there's a really palpable energy for everybody here looking forward to the program starting.

So tune in.

We are so excited to be able to bring our listeners along, to join us in what we will be discussing this weekend, the people that we're going to be able to talk to this weekend, in everybody in this mass recommitment to the end of the genocide in Gaza and to freedom for Palestine.

Our next speaker is one of the students that Hattin mentioned that refused to stay silent about Gaza.

When the Trump administration tried to turn his immigration status into a Muslim, he continued to refuse.

He refused to stay quiet.

Addressing us through many letters.

addressing us through many letters from his ICE detention center where he sat for more than a hundred days Mahmoud Khalil

urged all of us to continue fighting for the people of Gaza reminded us

Reminded us of what our struggle is about, what is important.

The real-life people of Gaza, the concrete and actual stories, and all of those who are victims of the injustice that Gaza and the struggle against this genocide reveals.

Immigrants and many, many others.

A son of a Galilee and in the long tradition of Palestinian political prisoners who have provided our movement leadership, please, brothers and sisters, welcome Mahmoud Khalil.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And if they think otherwise, what we tell them,

we're not going anywhere.

I mean,

Dr.

Hatim really fired me up.

I'm not sure how I can match that energy,

but it's true.

The student movement is the moral compass of this country.

And

I want to say to Abu Bakr,

when he said

that we give him hope.

In fact,

we get our hope.

We get our persistence from the people of Ghaza.

This is our moral duty to speak up.

in a time of genocide.

Palestine is the compass.

But here's the thing.

What does it mean?

It cannot just be a slogan.

It must guide us how we act

and how we build.

It guided me in the refugee camp where I grew up.

Growing up in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, where you are surrounded by the injustices,

you see first hand the struggle of your people.

You see it

in the eyes of your mother

when she's asking neighbors for money to get by through the rest of the month.

You see it in your neighbors.

You see it in your grandparents' voices when they talk about their life in Tiberias, in Palestine.

You see it in your brothers who are struggling to get a visa to travel.

But also, you see it in yourself, a young boy, watching your people massacred on TV.

Every conversation in the camp was about survival, but also about dignity, where every children understood

when even children understood that our lives were tied to something bigger than us.

And when I got detained,

I had few options.

One, to remain silent and

just wish that the system may

vindicate me.

Another option is to focus on my case, to focus on my family.

and appeal to the people's emotions.

And another

is to focus and to connect my case to the larger case of oppression against Palestinians.

I choose the latter.

I choose that.

I chose that because I knew that I was targeted because I am Palestinian.

Because I knew that by my detention, they want to deflect from the reality that Israel is committing a genocide, that Israel has killed and maimed over 100,000 Palestinians and is carrying out this genocide backed by billions of US dollars money.

That's what they wanted to do.

They wanted me to just care about myself, just to care about my immigration status.

and to ignore the plight of my people.

By being vocal, I took and taking, now I'm taking a huge risk.

I'm being put under a microscope by the U.S.

government.

They want to intimidate me.

They want to silence us.

And in all honesty, it would be much easier and safer for me to remain silent.

But silence is not an option and should not be an option.

I will not remain silent in the face of a genocide.

I will not stay silent when my people are being starved and massacred.

And I will continue to keep the focus on Palestine and its liberation.

In organizing spaces, there were moments when such spaces felt heavy with tension.

Disagreements, egos, ideologies.

Sometimes it felt that that those things would pull us apart.

In all these moments, every single one of them, I reminded myself and those around me that Palestine is the compass.

Not our pride, not our grudges, but the liberation of our people.

Palestine and Gaza are the compass, means to me that we build a national liberation movement whose compass is the liberation of land and people.

A movement that's bigger than me,

that's bigger than any one of us.

It means building the foundations of a long-term struggle, an infrastructure that will outlast us as individuals.

a movement that pulls in the largest possible base of people to fight for Palestinian liberation anywhere and everywhere.

Because the last thing that

we want

is when this genocide ends,

Israel would get away with its genocide.

That everyone would forget about Israel crimes against our people.

Palestine is the compass also means to me

that we build a movement rooted in Palestinian voices and experiences,

in all their diversity, a movement open to allies across the world.

And let me tell you this.

The Palestinian Liberation Movement is winning.

The fact that I was targeted by the highest officials and levels of this country means that we are winning.

Means that we are succeeding in shifting the mainstream in this country for Palestine to be the mainstream.

Also, it shows that our movement threatens the status quo,

that it punctures the Zionist narrative and the propaganda that Israel depends on.

Because Zionism only depends by portraying that Israel is

a normal state.

It's an ordinary state.

But our work is to strip that facade until Israel stands exposed.

as a pariah state, until the Zionist genocidal project and the ideology of supremacy that it's built on collapse completely.

Because Gaza has shown the world what resilience looks like, what truth looks like, what it means to refuse erasure, even in the face of genocide, Gaza is the compass.

Palestine is the compass.

And as we march forward, not as individuals, but as a people, as a movement, as a revolution,

until return,

until liberation, until victory, free Palestine.

Thank you.

I believe that we will win.

I believe that we will win.

I believe that we will win.

I believe that we will win.

I believe that we will win.

I believe that we will win.

Thank you again, Mahmoud.

So that was Mahmoud Khalil's powerful speech at the People's Conference.

And I think what I was so struck by is that you hear this about Mahmoud Khalil, you know this about Mahmoud Khalil, but to see it happening in front of you is really something.

And that's his insistence on centering Gaza, his insistence that we must be centering Palestine, the way he connects what happened to him to the bigger picture, which is the struggle for liberation.

He talked about all these ways that this struggle is difficult, of course.

Obviously, he was detained for more than 100 days.

He has been a witness to suffering.

He talks about difficulty and tension in organizing spaces.

And still, he's always talking about what is our duty?

What are we building?

He says, we're building the infrastructure that will outlast us as individuals.

So, you know, the way Mahmoud Khalil models giving of oneself, models the refusal to be turned into, you know, just a story of one person, the way he models commitment to a cause that is greater than the individual.

I was so impacted by this in the moment.

And this was just one of many things I was thinking about when I was able to sit down with Mahmoud one-on-one after his speech.

So the next thing you'll hear is our interview with Mahmoud.

It is an honor this afternoon at the People's Conference for Palestine to have just a little bit of Mahmoud Khalil's time.

Mahmoud Khalil, welcome to Popular Cradle, and thank you so, so much for being here.

It is an honor.

Oh, thank you so much for having me.

We appreciate it so much.

So,

we have heard from you.

You obviously have taken up this important responsibility to be talking with the press and the media.

So we know a lot about the conditions of your detention and this kind of thing.

We know you have ongoing cases even.

I think what we're interested in talking about today is maybe how you have thought about this role of political prisoner, how it was thrust upon you, and how you thought about your communications from detention.

We obviously as Palestinians, we know there's a history, a tradition of our political prisoners in prison, not just for being Palestinian, but for what they represent, right?

And the Zionist entity wants to target these people for what they mean to our people and what they represent for us.

And then our political prisoners have done so much for our struggle, contributed so much to our energy to continue to take up the fight for a free Palestine.

You in detention were no different.

How did you decide to publish your writings?

You know, I'm thinking about a letter from a Palestinian political prisoner in Louisiana and also the beautiful letter you wrote to your son.

How did you decide to publish your writing while you were in detention?

So basically, as you've mentioned, the main target was, you know, because we're Palestinians, because of what we represent.

And I knew from the very beginning that my targeting was part of an effort to chill speech in this country, to actually make an example out of me so others wouldn't speak up for Palestine.

And that Palestine was threatening them to that point that they had to go back to like 1952 to dig a law to come after me.

So that was the main purpose.

I knew that very, very well.

And they had a few options when I was in detention.

Like the first one, you know, like just be silent, you know, like

just like don't make a big fuss and then maybe uh that they will uh let you stay in this country the other option was um

to to just focus on my case at that point you know like i'm a recent grad my my wife is american citizen she's pregnant so that would play well with like you know the American conscious and to focus that it's it's a purely first amendment or freedom of speech like matter, which I refused to.

And the third option, which is I knew that my case is just a continuation of the Palestinian struggle, that violence against Palestinians is cross-borders.

It doesn't stop only like in Palestine or in Israeli prison.

It was way beyond that.

And I wanted to

take that opportunity to actually shed light on

what's happening in Palestine, how my story is only, I think

I describe it as a drop in the sea of Palestinian sorrow and

struggle.

Because

they wanted,

by targeting me, they wanted like sort of to deflect the attention from what's happening in Palestine and to

make us like just, you know,

busy about our own survival, about what we like, you know, just like me as a person, separated from the movement.

so it was very important to me in these in these writings um to give hope to other people that despite all these miserable condition conditions despite all the smear campaigns and and um you know the targeting that no we will not remain silent uh we should continue to speak up um and they i believe that was like a huge responsibility um

just not to let them succeed in what they initially wanted which is to silence us.

Yeah, silence, isolate, make people afraid of saying more.

Yeah.

I think, you know, you talked about the responsibility.

I just want to say about the power of these writings.

I myself read some of your writings in front of rallies to groups of people.

It was at a time when

Trump's...

the Trump administration, everything, this repression campaign, people were really feeling it.

And so to hear from someone that was the direct target, sacrificing so much and still speaking, it was so very important.

I wonder if you were inspired by particular figures, loved ones, family members, our people's history and tradition, or just like experiences you've had.

What did you know about like what it means to be a political prisoner?

And like, how did you navigate it with so much conviction, so much intention?

I was raised in a Palestinian household, connected to the Palestinian struggle at every

conjunction, like at every

corner.

And I could see the injustices that's happening to Palestinians.

I don't have to read about what it means for that.

Extended members of the family or people around me

who were targeted by Israel, whether like being in prison, but also killed.

And

I was raised as so many Palestinians reading Hassan Kanafani,

reading Mahmoud Darweesh, reading about

the different Palestinian struggles, whether it's in prison or outside of prison.

And that made me more and more

convinced and then to have that conviction about the importance of these writings and

moving

the global conscious about Palestine.

And

also,

I must say that I was also very much inspired by the young students in this country, who the majority of them are not Palestinians, who put their lives at risk, their futures at risk, being detained,

detained, expelled, suspended from their schools.

A lot of them, they had, again, like nothing to do with Palestine as

a home country.

So that inspired me a lot too.

And also just the struggle of Palestinians, like it's what's happening happening to them right now uh in in palestine i i remembered dr hasam aposofiya of course like being uh thrown in in into uh um israeli jails for doing nothing for just being for just being like a doctor who cares about um his people i of course remembered uh basr al-araj and and his writings about the importance of of not only being an intellectual not only like uh being educated because this wouldn't liberate um you or or or your people and to actually take the step forward towards the liberation.

I went to, speaking of Basin al-Araj,

I went to the global, the march to Ghaze in Cairo over the summer.

And of course, the march didn't end up happening, but I was in Cairo and I ended up meeting Ghazawi families, recent refugees.

And a few of them said that it's obvious that what's happening in Gaza, Israel not only targeting, you know, fighters or who they think are fighters, but also targeting intellectuals, our people's thinkers.

This is what threatens Israel more than anything.

They want to target those who advocate for the rights of Palestinians,

who expose their crimes, because Israel, to a very large degree, depends on its propaganda, on its image as a normal country or as a miracle country

in the West.

And the fact that

you have so many eloquent

Palestinians and allies who are exposing these lies is actually threatening the foundation of Israel

in so many different ways than what a freedom fighter is doing or the resistance is doing, whether in the West Bank or in Gaza.

And that's why, you know, like they targeted Hussain Kenefani because of his speech, Najr Ali, because of just like

some caricature and paintings.

This is also,

again,

really

fundamentally threatening to the Zionist ideology and propaganda.

No, exactly.

I have kind of like a big question, but you have taken up, you know, a struggle again

without being given a choice, right?

These things just happen to you.

There's so much personally in your life that's at risk.

You're a husband, you're a father, you know, a member of a family building your life here in the States.

So what makes this cause for you worth fighting for you know why is continuing to be part of the movement for a liberated palestine why is it worth such a risk yeah i mean the fear is real and the exhaustion and um the feeling of of of being unheard and you know like you're just one person and um you should care about your family all of that is is very real um and and we should do that like um but to me um you know that

when

I feed Dean, my son, when I look at his face,

I just remember the faces of the Palestinian children who don't have that luxury of being safe, of being fed.

And they call it luxury, and it shouldn't be.

It's a lameer right that any human being, regardless of who they are, should get.

And to think that what's happening in Ghazan in Palestine is far from us is wrong.

The oppression is at our door.

And

Israel and its lobby

problem is our mere existence as Palestinian.

Even if we don't say anything, just that you are Palestinian, that you're saying that you are Palestinian.

They have an issue

with that.

And I don't know, like to me,

you know,

the cost of remaining silent is much higher than actually speaking up, especially when it's compared and it shouldn't be compared

to the struggles of Palestinians in Ghazan across Palestine, the miseries that they go through every day

just to

exist.

and to continue holding

the cause, the Palestinian cause.

And I consider myself, as a Palestinian who was born and raised

in a refugee camp,

I consider myself one of the lucky ones who now here have

this

luxury, that's what I call luxury of being here, actually being able to study, to learn, to read,

and to advocate for Palestine.

Has it changed your relationship with the U.S.

and Palestine that you're making your life in a country that now all of a sudden is so hostile to you and what you represent?

Yeah.

I mean,

I've been all my life very well aware of the impact of the U.S.

foreign policy on us as Palestinians

since I was young, since I was in Syria.

So that in particular did not change.

Like, I did not come here thinking that it's paradise.

But at the same time,

it's shocking to see the extent that the establishment in this country would go to suppress Palestinian voices and anything about Palestine.

So it's not that like the Palestine exception

did not exist in this country before, but now it's taking different forms.

And

you can explain it because

the movement itself also has shifted.

In the past, they did not have to do what they are doing now

because it was not in the mainstream.

It was not like as obvious or in their faces as now.

But over the years and like the very past few years,

the issue of Palestine shifted from being just like an issue or a foreign policy issue, becoming a very mainstream matter in US politics that every single politician in this country talk about,

that every university actually talk about.

This this meant that the state had to change its tactics to try to contain the movement and this is what they're trying now to do with whether my targeting and whether in this conference by you know canceling the visas and turning people away

all all of that and this shows us the

the limitation of the American democracy

when when it comes to issues that are

that goes against like the the interests interest of the establishment.

And again, they are fearing that because the American public is awakening.

I think now we can say that the majority or over 50% of Americans, they support Palestine, which is a huge shift, like a huge shift

from a few years ago.

But this means also another responsibility on us as Palestinians, as people who care about Palestine, to raise up also to the moment and

step up our work and see what's the next step that would actually

match

the current reality.

Yeah, what's called of us right now.

Yeah.

Is there anything

from your time in detention that has stuck with you that maybe

you continue to think about or a memory or the people that were also in detention with you that maybe,

you know, when you're talking to media, it's so much about you, about Palestine, about free speech.

But is there another aspect of your time in detention that maybe it doesn't get asked about much?

Yeah.

I mean, basically, you know,

what stuck with me mostly is that there's so many injustices happening on US soil that a lot of us don't know, even if

we

think that we are like, you know, like...

educated or know a lot about like American politics.

And

what exactly like really stuck with me is is uh the personal stories of so many detainees who

who were

vilified, who were dehumanized on the media as immigrants as a whole, like criminals and

all these like vicious and

horrible words like to describe them.

But in reality, they are like, you know, they're just humans and they are here, you know, seeking better future for

themselves and

their families.

So this is like when you get shocked at where

American rule of law constitution stops.

It's not

that thing that we read about, like

when

America proclaims freedom, liberty, and

all of that,

which should scare everyone.

It should scare not only

us

as

people of color or us as immigrants or us as different, but every single one in this country who does not align with

power in this country.

You've talked about how the struggle for Palestinian liberation, it shows us actually, it reveals that these struggles are not something happening far away, but actually something at our own doorstep in our own country here in the U.S.

Do you think that our movement, you know, is there a place where our movement can take up this intersection, right, with

immigrant justice, with,

like you said, your

one drop in a sea of other detainees in Gina, Louisiana, even?

Yeah.

No, I mean, here I think.

It's a very fine line between being in solidarity and to build cross movements or solidarity and actually being co-opted by other movements, which is very, very,

very dangerous, not not only to our movement, but also to other movements.

And as Palestinians, I see ourselves so much in places where we

feel the burden of actually talking also about other

causes because of just the amount of injustice that we endure, that we feel that we should talk about immigrants, about LGBT rights, about immigrants, like about Palestine, like freedom, everything in this country, women's rights, everything.

And to me, that's very important to maintain the solidarity, but also to maintain

centering Palestine as Palestinians.

Maintaining, like, just like,

focusing on building like a movement as wide as possible that would center Palestine, that would be principled on the

the solidarity with with other movements,

that doesn't forget Palestinians,

that doesn't practice,

what I would say, like purity politics or purity tests, where if you're not 100% like us, then you're not one of us, which is very dangerous.

And unfortunately, we can see it now, like in

different parts

of the movements

that you can see this fracture that people are forgetting that why we are organizing.

We're not organizing for the sake of organizing.

We are organizing for a free Palestine.

So I think that that must be always like,

yeah, we shouldn't be naive or,

you know, like, just like,

like, I wouldn't say like too nice, but like, right, it's not about holding hands.

Exactly.

Right, right.

And this goes into the strategy of the movement and how can, like, to maintain,

and this is a question I always like

that keeps me awake at night.

Like, how can we sustain the movement beyond the genocide?

How can we ensure that we have sustained pressure on the power structure of this country.

How can we hold Israel accountable and get what's right for our people beyond the genocide?

You don't have to see people getting killed on your screens every day to act.

Just the fact that there's occupation, the fact that there is this colonization project happening in that land should

by itself

enrage us and push us to do more more and more for Palestine.

It's worth our sacrifice.

It's worth taking up a hard cause because something worth fighting for, right?

The thing that is most beautiful as a reward, which would be liberation, of course, it's going to be difficult, right?

This is like the direct implication that it's taking up a cause, you know, requires this sacrifice because it's such a big responsibility.

Maybe we just have one more question.

I wonder if you're reading or watching or listening to anything that is inspiring to you right now when you close your eyes and look into your future what is something you're looking forward to

well I would be lying if I truly like I'm I'm having a lot of time with with reading watching just like I have a newborn now staking 100% of my time

in addition to just like all the things that's happening in my life with the legal case

and

and to me just like mostly like what keeps me inspired,

just like, you know, seeing the organizing, seeing the energy

that's taking place across the globe, not only

in here,

that's actually something like...

keeps me going.

I'm reading now the message

of Tenahese codes.

And I haven't reached the Palestine section yet, but it's also like inspiring again, like going back to the cross-movement solidarity

around the world and actually going back to our roots and start thinking from there.

And to think about how liberation is

collective.

It's not about liberating myself and subjugating others.

It's actually about

mutual liberation and collective liberation as a whole.

Mahmoud, thank you so much.

I cannot say what an honor it is to meet you, to have you share your time with with us on the podcast.

We are so, so grateful.

The honor is mine.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you.

Before we end this episode, we should note that Mahmoud Khalil's case is ongoing.

An immigration court recently ordered that Mahmoud Khalil be deported from this country.

His legal team is appealing that decision, and another case in federal court is also ongoing.

As of this recording, Mahmoud Khalil remains in in the United States, as committed and vocal as ever.

Popular Cradle is made in partnership with the Palestinian youth movement.

Thank you to the many people who contributed to the making of this episode.

Our editor is Saraya Shockley.

Our artwork is by Shen Biji and Vivek Benkatraman.

Our theme music is composed by Salma Talib and performed by Clarissa Bitar and Hisham Jermakhani.

Follow, like, and subscribe to us on social media at Popular Cradle.

That's YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram at Popular Cradle.