In an appearance at the South by Southwest festival on Sunday, Columbia University encampment leader Mahmoud Khalil said "it's very racist to ask a Palestinian" to condemn Hamas.
The moderator, the Guardian's U.S. editor, Betsy Reed, asked Khalil to explain why he refused to condemn Hamas during a July interview with CNN. Khalil dismissed CNN's request as "disingenuous and absurd."
"It's very racist to ask a Palestinian this question just to validate their views," Khalil said Sunday. "I don't see them asking any Israeli or American politician about condemning all the killing that's happening—whether in Lebanon and Palestine and Iran, anywhere."
"That sort of hypocrisy and double standards that's being used against us [sic]," he continued. "I refuse to be part of that, and they would never answer such a question."
SXSW's decision to feature Khalil gave the anti-Israel activist a massive platform—the Austin, Texas, conference and festival drew more than 300,000 attendees and nearly 400,000 views on YouTube in 2025. Tickets for the festival, which was sponsored by major corporations such as Sam's Club, Rivian, and Carnival, can cost up to $2,095 for full access.
SXSW pointed the Washington Free Beacon to a statement senior vice president of programming Greg Rosenbaum provided to the Austin American-Statesman.
"While many people, including us, may strongly disagree with some of the views, the reality is that expressing some of those views in a country with free speech protections led him to be imprisoned," Rosenbaum said. "That doesn't mean we support what he says, but it does mean that there's a broader conversation that's worth having about speech, disagreement and the consequences people face for expressing controversial ideas."
Khalil went on to complain that there's a "double standard" when it comes to contextualizing Hamas's Oct. 7 terror attack. He said that's part of a broader effort "to censor any speech that can be remotely critical of the Israeli government."
"You can never justify violence. You can never justify October 7," he said. "But to them ... but October 7 justifies everything after, which, to me, is again, like that double standard."
"These are all deliberate attempts to silence people," Khalil added. "It's easier for them to silence me than to actually engage in the conversation about what's happening, and that's what we're seeing now especially when it comes to Israel's attempt to censor the First Amendment in this country."
Khalil's SXSW appearance is just the latest instance of prominent groups and figures embracing him. Earlier this month, Khalil was spotted dining with New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani (D.) and his wife, Rama Duwaji. The outing came just days after news emerged that Duwaji liked multiple Instagram posts celebrating the Oct. 7 attack and calling reports of sexual violence against Israeli civilians a "mass rape hoax."
Khalil—a Syrian native and Algerian national—emerged as an outspoken leader in the anti-Israel movement at Columbia shortly after Hamas's Oct. 7 terror attack, serving as a negotiator during the April 2024 encampments on behalf of Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), a radical student group that called for "death to America" in the wake of Operation Epic Fury, the joint U.S.-Israel military offensive against Iran. He also participated in a series of illegal protests, including the storming of Barnard College's library, which involved CUAD agitators disseminating Hamas propaganda.
He told reporters at the time that he and his movement would push Columbia to divest itself from Israel by "any available means necessary."
The Trump administration detained Khalil in March 2025 and revoked his visa and green card, with a State Department official telling the Free Beacon that, "under this administration, if you support terror groups, we will deport you." An immigration judge in September found he "willfully misrepresented" both his campus activism and his work for the Hamas-tied United Nations Relief and Works Agency at the time of the Oct. 7 attacks on his green card application.
Khalil has since been released, though the Trump administration has said it plans to rearrest and deport him following an appeals court ruling in its favor. In the meantime, he's used his freedom to continue his crusade. During a June ABC News appearance, Khalil called a string of anti-Semitic attacks a "direct result of the U.S. unconditional [sic] support to Israel" and said the violent acts were "desperate attempts to be heard." He told New York Times columnist Ezra Klein a few months later that "we couldn't avoid such a moment" as the Oct. 7 assault and that Hamas committed the attack "to break the cycle, to break that Palestinians are not being heard."
Khalil directed the Free Beacon to his spokeswoman, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Update, 7:05 p.m.: This piece was updated to clarify that the description posted to SXSW's website was written by the Guardian.
