Professor at Center of Columbia University Deportation Scandal is Former Israeli Spy
Keren Yarhi-Milo poses with Hillary Clinton during Clinton’s 2023 guest teaching stint at Columbia. Photo | Facebook | Hillary Clinton
By Alan MacLeod | MintPress News | March 11, 2025
The professor at the center of the Columbia University deportation scandal is a former Israeli intelligence official, MintPress News can reveal.
Mahmoud Khalil, a recent graduate of the university’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), was abducted by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) Saturday for his role in organizing protests last year against Israel’s attack on Gaza. Khalil’s dean, Dr. Keren Yarhi-Milo, head of the School of International and Public Affairs, is a former Israeli military intelligence officer and official at Israel’s Mission to the United Nations. Yarhi-Milo played a significant role in drumming up public concern about a supposed wave of intolerable anti-Semitism sweeping over the campus, thereby laying the groundwork for the extensive crackdown on civil liberties that has followed the protests.
Spooks in Our Midst
Before entering academia, Dr. Yarhi-Milo served as an officer and an intelligence analyst with the Israeli Defense Forces. Given that she was recruited into the intelligence services because of her ability to speak Arabic fluently, her job likely entailed surveilling the Arab population.
After leaving the world of intelligence, she worked for Israel’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York. While there, she met and married her husband, Israel’s official United Nations spokesperson.
Although she is now an academic, she has never left the world of international security, making the subject her area of expertise. She has made a point of trying to lift women’s voices in the field. One of these was the then-U.S. Director of National Security, Avril Haines, whom she spoke with in 2023. But even though Khalil was a student in her school, she had nothing to say about his arrest. Indeed, rather than speak out on the issue (as activists have demanded), she instead chose this week to invite Naftali Bennett, prime minister of Israel from 2021 to 2022, to speak at Columbia. Students protesting Tuesday’s event were condemned by university authorities for “harassing” Yarhi-Milo.
Unprecedented Protests, Unprecedented Repression
Columbia was the epicenter of a massive protest movement across university campuses nationwide last year. It is estimated that at least eight percent of all American college students participated in demonstrations denouncing the genocidal attack on Gaza and calling on educational institutions to divest from Israel. The response was equally vast in its scale. Well over 3,000 protestors were arrested, including faculty members themselves.
The nationwide movement began at Columbia on April 17, when a modest Gaza solidarity encampment was established. Protestors were shocked when university president Minouche Shafik immediately called in the New York Police Department – the first time the university had allowed police to suppress dissent on campus since the famous 1968 demonstrations against the Vietnam War.
Mahmoud Khalil was among the leaders of the movement. The Syrian-born Palestinian refugee was willing to speak calmly and cogently to the press about the protest’s goals. A permanent resident of the United States, he was abducted by ICE on Saturday.
“ICE proudly apprehended and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a radical foreign pro-Hamas student on the campus of Columbia University. This is the first arrest of many to come,” President Trump stated. Secretary of State Marco Rubio echoed Trump’s ominous threat, announcing, “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.” In another clear threat, the Trump administration moved to cancel $400 million in funding to Columbia University, citing the institution’s failure to sufficiently crack down on “antisemitic” incidents on campus.
Khalil’s eight-month pregnant wife was initially told that he had been taken to a facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. In fact, he had been moved halfway across the country to a center in Jena, Louisiana. Journalist Pablo Manríquez of Migrant Insider explained that ICE often goes “immigration ‘judge shopping’ by putting detainees in detention centers under jurisdictions of courts that very rarely decide in favor of migrants.”
The very high-profile attempt to deport the holder of a Green Card because of political speech criticizing a foreign government has left many civil rights lawyers deeply worried. Alec Karakatsanis, for example, stated that “I’ve never seen a more clear-cut First Amendment violation, or a more flagrant government declaration of intent to violate blackletter law.” “The government does not claim he committed a crime, just that he held views that the government doesn’t like about Israel. Bone chilling,” he added.
Columbia’s Billionaire Pro-Israel Backers
Much of Columbia’s funding comes from donations from billionaire benefactors. But those gifts come with strings attached. This became apparent in the wake of the protest movement, as many pro-Israel patrons demanded the university take action. Manufacturing magnate Robert Kraft, for example, publicly announced he was cutting his alma mater off from his lavish funding over its failure to effectively suppress the demonstrations.
Hedge fund manager Leon Cooperman did the same, demanding that Columbia’s “crazy kids” “have to be controlled.” These “kids” evidently also included 61-year-old Jordanian professor Joseph Massad, whose views on the Middle East Cooperman found intolerable, and called for his firing. Soviet-born oligarch Len Blavatnik, meanwhile, urged police to hold the protestors to account.
Between them, Kraft, Cooperman and Blavatnik are believed to have donated nearly $100 million to Columbia, giving them considerable influence over the political direction of the university.
There were also voices from within the university clamoring for the violent suppression of the student movement. Assistant Professor of Business Management Shai Davidai, for example, denounced the protestors as “Nazis” and “terrorists” and called for the National Guard to be set upon the encampment, obliquely referencing the Kent State University Massacre while doing so. Davidai, an Israeli-American, served in the IDF and has publicly expressed his pride in doing so.
Given its most recent addition, it appears unlikely that the School of International and Public Affairs will moderate its pro-Israel positions. In January, the school announced that Jacob Lew would join the faculty. Lew had just left his job as the U.S. Ambassador to Israel under the Biden administration, a role in which he facilitated American complicity in genocide, supplying Israel with weapons and providing it with diplomatic support for its efforts.
Defending Israel, Destroying Free Speech
Longtime readers of MintPress News will be less surprised than many to hear that Israeli military intelligence officials hold such important positions in American public life. Previous MintPress investigations have uncovered giant networks of former Israeli spies working in top jobs in big tech and social media companies, including Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Amazon. Even TikTok, often labeled a Chinese spying app, has hired former Israeli spies to run its affairs. And in October, we revealed that former Israeli spooks are writing America’s news, with multiple former agents working at top U.S. outlets, including CNN, Axios, and the New York Times.
Perhaps, then, the fact that the dean of the very school at the center of a worldwide media storm is a former Israeli military intelligence officer should not be such a shock. But it remains a stark reminder of the level of extraordinary institutional bias in favor of Israel displayed across the United States.
Colombia Professor Faces Firing After Pro-Israel Social Media Pile-On
By John Miles – Sputnik – 14.07.2024
Pro-Israel lawmakers and Zionist accounts on social media caused a firestorm after law professor Katherine Franke questioned the conduct of ex-IDF members on Columbia’s New York City campus.
A tenured professor at New York’s Columbia University faces firing after a pro-Israel online campaign criticizing comments the academic made on behalf of pro-Palestine demonstrators at the Ivy League school.
“There’s a very good chance that they will fire me,” said law professor Katherine Franke after being subjected to questioning she characterized as hostile as a part of Columbia’s investigation into the incident.
The controversy stems from an interview Franke granted to Democracy Now! on January 25. The professor sharply criticized Columbia’s response to an incident in which pro-Palestine protesters were sprayed with an unknown chemical substance by two alleged veterans of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
University administrators initially blamed the students for conducting an “unsanctioned” protest before finally banning the perpetrators from campus while police conducted an investigation of the incident.
“Columbia has a program, It’s a graduate relationship with older students from other countries, including Israel,” Franke noted on the radio program. “It’s something that many of us were concerned about because so many of those Israeli students who then come to the Columbia campus are coming right out of their military service. And they’ve been known to harass Palestinian and other students on our campus, and it’s something the university has not taken seriously in the past.”
“The university waited three or four days to actually even say anything about it,” she added. “They have not reached out to the students who were sick… some of whom are still in the hospital.”
The comment was subsequently mischaracterized by pro-Israel accounts on social media, who alleged that Franke advocated banning Israeli citizens from the Columbia campus.
“This @Columbia professor has a problem with former IDF soldiers being on campus,” read one post typical of the outrage, shared by Columbia Business School professor Shai Davidai, who identifies on the X platform as “Jewish Israeli” and “Zionist.”
“She doesn’t have a problem with ex-soldiers from any other place,” he complained. “Her only problem is with Israelis. @ProfKFranke – I served in the IDF. Do you think I also shouldn’t be allowed on campus?”
Davidai publicly criticized a wave of pro-Palestine protest on US college campuses earlier this year, calling the students “Nazis” and “terrorists” and calling for the National Guard to be deployed to break up the demonstrations. The demand implies a deadly threat against protesters in the United States, where National Guard troops shot and killed several antiwar demonstrators at Ohio’s Kent State University in 1970.
The business professor’s comments have been shared by official Israeli government accounts online as the country has invested significant effort in defending its cause on social media. It emerged last month that Israel has set up fake accounts online to lobby US lawmakers to continue supporting its military operation in the besieged Gaza Strip, which a study recently claimed could kill as many as 186,000. In 2013 it was revealed the country pays students to defend it on Facebook and Twitter.
Columbia administration released a statement defending Israeli students in response to the firestorm, which was championed by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. The following month Franke was informed a complaint had been lodged against her by two Columbia law professors for “discrimination,” and in April Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik called for disciplinary action against her during a House hearing with controversial Columbia University President Minouche Shafik.
A number of college professors and other faculty have been fired or faced disciplinary action in the United States for expressing pro-Palestine sentiments. Dr. Ameer Loggins is filing a defamation suit against California’s Stanford University after being fired for giving a lecture that discussed Israel in the context of historical acts of settler colonialism.
“What’s of greatest concern is not really my 20-year-plus career at Columbia, but what this says about peaceful protest on our campuses around the lives and dignity of Palestinians,” Franke said about the investigation into her comments, which remains ongoing. “What’s happening to me is happening to our students, it’s happened to people on many other campuses.” … Full article
“Free Speech Is Being Weaponized”: Columbia Dean and New Yorker Writer Calls For More Censorship
By Jonathan Turley | December 11, 2020
We have been discussing how reporters, editors, commentators, and academics have embraced rising calls for censorship and speech controls, including President-elect Joe Biden and key advisers. This includes academics rejecting the very concept of objectivity in journalism in favor of open advocacy. Now, Columbia Journalism Dean and New Yorker writer Steve Coll has denounced how the First Amendment right to freedom of speech was being “weaponized” to protect disinformation. That’s right. A journalism dean and writer declaring that the problem is that free speech itself is allowing too much freedom on the Internet and other forums.
Coll’s comments came in a discussion on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” when he was asked by Kasie Hunt about the need for Big Tech to censor speech. Rather than defend the right of people to express themselves freely, Coll lashed out at companies like Facebook as “motivated, as all companies are, to make money” though at the same time is “acting like a public square.” He decried the failure to have more expansive regulation of free speech and showed little concern or merit for arguments from free speech advocates. Like Harvard academics who recently declared “China was right” about censorship, Coll just assumed that it was self-evident that too much free speech is a bad thing and that these companies need to protect people from harmful or false ideas.
“And yes, Facebook has moved somewhat. They’ve had a better election in 2020 than they did in 2016. They’ve learned to put some brakes on, you know, here and there, but you can’t get away from the fact that their mission is to connect everybody in the world. That’s what motivates Mark Zuckerberg and it’s his passion and he profoundly believes in free speech.”
What is most maddening is that Coll spoke on behalf of journalists in calling for less freedom:
“Those of us in journalism have to come to terms with the fact that free speech, a principle that we hold sacred, is being weaponized against the principle of journalism and what do we do about that,. As reporters, we kind of march into this war with our facts nobly shouldered as if they were going to win the day and what we’re seeing that is because of the scale of this alternative reality that you’ve been talking about, our facts, our principles, our scientific method–it isn’t enough. So what do we do?”
That used to be an easy question. What you do is allow free speech to combat bad speech. What you do is support the right of citizens and journalists to publish without censorship. What you do is to embrace the freedom of expression while reinforcing the need to use that freedom to counter disinformation. Instead, Coll is joining the forces seeking to silence or curtail the speech of others. You do not support free speech by calling for its curtailment. For free speech advocates, it is as compelling as saying that we needed to “save” villages by destroying them in Vietnam. Worse yet, he is doing it in the names of “good journalism.”
Over 30 New York scholars and activists spied on by former Mossad agents
Palestine Legal | February 28, 2019
NEW YORK — Palestine Legal confirmed today that a 2017 attempt to scare New Yorkers believed to support boycotts for Palestinian rights with bogus ‘cease and desist’ letters was the work of ex-Mossad agents. The Mossad is Israel’s foreign spy agency.
The New Yorker’s Adam Entous reported on how a private Israeli intelligence firm called Psy-Group spied on supporters of Palestinian rights. “The company said that its operatives drew up lists of individuals and organizations to target,” wrote Entous.
The article profiles UC Berkeley lecturer Hatem Bazian, who was targeted by Psy-Group along with eight other Palestinian rights activists.
Before expanding to California, the campaign initially targeted boycott supporters on college campuses in New York, according to the article.
One such attempt was the now-defunct blacklist website outlawbds.com, whose operatives sent dozens of fake letters threatening students, professors and grassroots activists with “legal proceedings” if they did not “cease and desist” from supporting boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) for Palestinian rights. The New Yorker article identifies Psy-Group as the operators of the site.
Screenshot of Psy-Group email
“It’s scary to think that ex-Mossad agents were behind this spying,” said senior staff attorney Radhika Sainath, who advised over 30 individuals targeted by the letters. “The Mossad itself has a history of surveilling, sabotaging and assassinating Palestinian activists around the world.”
The people targeted by former Israeli intelligence agents with Psy-Group include faculty at Columbia University, New York University, multiple City University of New York (CUNY) campuses as well Black, Jewish, and Palestinian volunteers from groups such as Adalah-NY and Jewish Voice for Peace.
“It is disgraceful that professors and students in American public universities are being spied on and intimidated by the former agents of a foreign nation,” said CUNY professor Sarah Schulman, who was targeted by Psy-Group. “Fortunately, the commitment of grassroots Americans to Palestinian rights is increasing everyday, and no level of threatening covert operations can stop it.”
Though outlawbds.com and Psy-Group no longer exist, the tactics and methods they employed —anonymous blacklisting websites, fake profiles used to target or influence people, and smear campaigns—are all still in use by other anti-Palestinian groups, some of which potentially share information with the Israeli government. The largest example is the blacklist site Canary Mission, which has targeted hundreds of students and faculty who advocate for Palestinian rights.
While it is unclear what relationship Psy-Group had with active Israeli intelligence or government agencies, coordinating with a foreign government to secretly spy on people in the US may violate federal laws. The Israeli government has itself encouraged and funded such activities to covertly undermine the movement for Palestinian rights.
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From the Archives
The lies about the 1967 war are still more powerful than the truth
By Alan Hart | June 4, 2012
In retrospect it can be seen that the 1967 war, the Six Days War, was the turning point in the relationship between the Zionist state of Israel and the Jews of the world (the majority of Jews who prefer to live not in Israel but as citizens of many other nations). Until the 1967 war, and with the exception of a minority of who were politically active, most non-Israeli Jews did not have – how can I put it? – a great empathy with Zionism’s child. Israel was there and, in the sub-consciousness, a refuge of last resort; but the Jewish nationalism it represented had not generated the overtly enthusiastic support of the Jews of the world. The Jews of Israel were in their chosen place and the Jews of the world were in their chosen places. There was not, so to speak, a great feeling of togetherness. At a point David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding father and first prime minister, was so disillusioned by the indifference of world Jewry that he went public with his criticism – not enough Jews were coming to live in Israel.
So how and why did the 1967 war transform the relationship between the Jews of the world and Israel? … continue
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