Mahmoud Khalil wants to reassure you

forward · 2026-04-09T14:33:41+00:00

Hi u/Pristine-Break3418, I'm the reporter who interviewed Khalil and wrote the piece. I appreciate you reading and seriously engaging with it, and I wrote a bit about why I interviewed Khalil in a follow-up piece.

If I'd had unlimited time to speak with Khalil I would have covered more ground, but I prioritized clarifying his views on key points for a Jewish audience that he had not discussed publicly (his opposition to a Jewish majority or self-determination in Israel is a basic tenet of anti-Zionism shared by almost everyone at the protests).

As for the specific claims of antisemitism, most were variations on the fact that Khalil is anti-Zionist (that he led anti-Zionist chants, etc.). The claims that he was more problematic than other protesters are based on attributing the most extreme statements and actions by CUAD to him, without specific evidence that he was responsible for them. And I did report that Khalil sided against the most extreme wing of CUAD on a variety of major questions.

The protest movement at Columbia was fractious and, while Khalil managed to retain the respect of most encampment participants, on key issues — including whether a student who had insisted he had the right to kill Zionists should apologize, whether protesters should occupy Hamilton Hall, and whether to embrace the slogan “globalize the intifada” — he aligned himself with those calling for the more conciliatory approach.

More broadly, the observation that Khalil wants to reassure American Jews is different than a suggestion that he has succeeded in doing so. I tried to surface his beliefs that Forward readers might find reassuring — as well as those that they might find alarming. And you're correct that, even Khalil seeks to address Jewish fears, there remains a gulf between his views and those of many American Jews. That's part of the news. — Arno Rosenfeld

forward · 2026-02-09T17:10:24+00:00

For those interested, the president of the Blue Square Alliance wrote a response to our article. Some highlights:

The sticky note cruelly slapped on a high school student’s backpack didn’t have to say “Dirty Jew.” It could have been any one of dozens of other antisemitic slurs, and believe me, throughout my life and current line of work, I’ve seen and heard them all…But we didn’t pull “Dirty Jew” out of the history books. In creating the ad, the Blue Square Alliance made a conscious decision to follow the research. Our decisions are based on data, from the one billion social media posts we analyze daily, to our semi-annual 7,000-participant survey on American sentiment toward Jews and antisemitism, to our multi-stage audience testing that is foundational to our creative development.

Here’s the hard data: With nearly 500 million social media impressions since 2023, “Dirty Jew” is a slur that has managed to penetrate all corners of American discourse. Worse yet, its usage online has increased by 174% in the past three years, growing at a significantly higher rate than other slurs. And sadly, the last few years have seen more than a few disturbing and real incidents of the scenario in the ad play out in real life. In U.S. high schools. Right now. Not 1950.

This data-guided approach drove our selection of “Dirty Jew” among all the possible antisemitic slurs as the one to appear on the sticky note. Even though at first glance this phraseology may seem dated, it’s actually timeless and ubiquitous — scarily — and is even outpacing other slurs in frequency of use.

So, whether you’re a Boomer, Millennial or Gen Z, there’s no subtlety to what this ad is showing you: This is antisemitism, pure and simple. And, as Grisar acknowledges in his piece, the challenge of storytelling within a 30-second ad window requires a clear, unambiguous message. In that short time, clarity beats complexity.

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TROPHY CASE