Mahmoud Khalil and the red-green attack on American sovereignty | Opinion

The stock market was late was on a real roller coaster, Elon MuskThe Department of Efficiency of the Government continues to collapse, the marches of Iran are closer to a nuclear weapon, and Russia and Ukraine approach a cessation of fire. But this week’s national political conversation had a curious tendency to focus on not anything, but instead the uncertain fate of a single unstitched and former graduate of Colombia University, Mahmoud Khalil.

Talk about the wrong shift of priorities. Most US consumers care very much about pocket books and retirement accounts. Probably, they also care about stability on the world-sided China stage, a relatively calm Middle East and a long-term delayed peace agreement to put an end to blood in Eastern Europe.

Instead, here is probably a media consumers Not You care very much: if a Syrian and Algerian national citizen who was the face of the violent revolts of the professional campus pro-Hamas Columbia University is deported. You would never know that, of course, from the constant concentration of the media on Saga Khalil. It is surprising that only 31% of Americans Gallup told him last fall Do they have a “great thing” or a “correct quantity” trust in the media?

In any case, Khalil is, through any metrics, a wild figure devoid of sympathy. New York Times He described him as the “public face of the protest against Israel” in Colombia. He was the spokesman for a group of pro-Hamas students, called Columbia University Apartheid Cepest. Cuad referred to the sacrifice of the Israelis on October 7 as a “moral, military and political victory” and said that he did not fight anything less than “the total eradication of Western civilization.” Khalil personally distributed propaganda brochures entitled HamasCode name for October 7.

And more relevant, Khalil is not an American citizen. He is a green book holder – a legal stranger. And like any extraterrestrial, legal or illegal, he can remain on our land only when the sovereign – in the US, is “us people” – aware of him. And when we eliminate our consent, then the stranger must go.

The power to exclude is the singular defining feature of what it means to be a sovereign. The extremely influential treaty of Emer de Vattel, The law of nationsHe described this power to be plenary: “The sovereign may prohibit the entry into its territory either to foreigners in general, in particular cases, for certain persons, or for certain particular purposes, as it may be advantageous for the state.” And as. supreme court Justice Antonin SCALIA noted in its 2001 dissent Zadvydas v. DavisCiting the previous assertion of Judge Robert Jackson in Shaughnessy v. United States ex. Mezei (1953): “The due process does not invest any strangers with the right to enter the United States, nor does it give the right to remain against the national will.”

It is quite simple, indeed: any stranger, from someone from here, on a tourist visa to a green book holder, is here just because we, the people – the citizens of this nation – aware of it. When the foreigner violates the conditions of his admission, he can be – indeed, he must be – be overturned. In addition, that alien can be removed briefly, if desired; There is no specific level of “due process” to which an alien is directed.

This brings us back to a foreign national Khalil who violated his conditions, supporting at least one (perhaps multiple) foreign terrorist organizations, designed by the US State Department, and making a common cause with an organization more generally for “the total eradication of Western civilization”. On the day the United States loses its ability to deport citizens who support such toxic beliefs is the day when the United States ceases to be a sovereign national state.

And there is the whole point.

Saga Khalil is the place where we see the intersection of the three threatening anti-Western ideologies and identity in my new book on Tuesday, Tuesday, Israel and civilization: the fate of the Jewish nation and the destiny of the West. First of all, there is he woke up Angle: Khalil and his Ilk believe in the neo-Marxist dicotomy “oppressor”/”oppressed”, and his opinion about Israel as an “oppressor” is the basis of his rejection activism. Second, there is Islamists Angle: Khalil and groups like Cuad support Sunnite Islamist outfits like Hamas. Third, there is Global neoliberal Angle: Those who protest against Khalil’s detention do not see too little distinction between citizen and noncitizen – such as John Lennon’s dystopian melody, they consider a world without borders.

The drama on Khalil’s arrest and detention does not refer to Khalil. It is about the fate of the United States – and the destiny of the West from which the US is fundamental.

Monday, the official X account for the US Senate The Judicial Committee Democrats Posted, along with a proper photo, “Free Mahmoud Khalil”. But if those Democrats in the Senate and many other Khalil’s apologists are sincere, they seek not only to “release” Khalil from the president Donald TrumpThe Agency for Immigration and Customs Application of Immigration. Rather, they try to “release” – and us – from the handcuffs of Western civilization itself.

Josh Hammer it is Newsweek Main editor, host of “The Josh Hammer Show“And”America in trial with Josh Hammer“A union chronicler, main advisor for Article III Projecta research colleague with Edmund Burke Foundationand the author of the future book, Israel and civilization: the fate of the Jewish nation and the destiny of the West (Radius Book Group, March 18). Subscribe -here for “Josh Hammer report“A. Newsweek Informative bulletin. X: @josh_hammer.

The opinions expressed in this article are of the writer.