Columbia students’ lawyers, street protest groups part of linked anti-Israel network
Legal representatives for allegedly pro-Hamas students threatened with deportation have advised and mentored activists leading disruptive rallies around New York and on campuses
Luke Tress is The Times of Israel's New York correspondent.
NEW YORK — Earlier this month, after US federal authorities detained a Columbia University protest leader, student activists walked off campus to rally outside the university’s gates.
They joined demonstrators from Within Our Lifetime, a hardline anti-Israel protest group, to chant for the release of the Columbia organizer, Mahmoud Khalil.
Meanwhile, Khalil’s lawyers battled for his release in court, filing legal summonses to US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The activists and lawyers were not disparate players animated by shared outrage over Khalil’s detention, but are connected — part of an overlapping network that has developed over the years around anti-Israel activism on the streets, in the courts and on campuses.
Ramzi Kassem, a lawyer who has represented Khalil, is an example of the intersecting spheres: Kassem is an alum of Columbia who wrote anti-Israel articles for the campus newspaper while a student in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He is now a professor at the public City University of New York (CUNY) law school, a hotbed of anti-Israel activism.
Kassem also heads Creating Law Enforcement Accountability and Responsibility (CLEAR), a resident nonprofit and legal clinic at the CUNY Law School. Lawyers from the group represent Khalil and other student activists and advise protest groups.
CLEAR aims to represent and advise clients against “government policies and practices deployed under the guise of ‘national security’ and ‘counterterrorism,’” its website says.
Two of the CLEAR’s recent alumni are CUNY Law graduates Nerdeen Kiswani and Fatima Mohammed, who each gave inflammatory anti-Israel graduation speeches at CUNY Law graduation ceremonies in 2022 and 2023. Mohammed’s 2023 speech set off a national uproar and prompted the law school to remove student speakers from graduation events.
Kiswani and Mohammed are two leaders of Within Our Lifetime, the most prominent anti-Israel activist group on New York City streets. Within Our Lifetime often collaborates with the Columbia activists, including at the protest outside the university this month. Kiswani joined the protest encampment at Columbia last year and co-hosted an off-campus student talk that brought in speakers from the activist group Samidoun, who praised Hamas during the event. Samidoun was designated as a terrorist entity by the US and Canada after the event.
Closing out the circle, CLEAR advises and supports Within Our Lifetime and the Columbia student activists. The day of the protest this month, the Columbia protest group posted an explainer from CLEAR that warned against cooperating with law enforcement. Within Our Lifetime and the Columbia protest coalition instruct followers to contact CLEAR if they run into trouble.
CLEAR is part of the nonprofit City University of New York School of Law Foundation. The group had revenue of $3.8 million between July 2022 and June 2023, the most recent period for which tax filings are available.
Workshops coach how to skirt the law
In one of CLEAR’s workshops for student protesters last year, lawyers from the group advised activists against non-citizens advocating for terrorism, soliciting funds for terror groups, and membership in terrorist organizations. The lawyers warned that non-citizens were subject to deportation, and students to expulsion, for terror support.
“There are certain kinds of things that we want to make sure that you know will create risks for you if you’re not a citizen, so that’s inciting, advocating, or declaring public approval or support for terrorist activity,” one of the lawyers said, according to video of the workshop shared by journalist Stu Smith.
Dallal and Naz Ahmad coached the students on how to avoid Customs and Border Protection making a copy of your phone data. Much stress was placed on how deleted group chats and photos could still be seen by these officers. pic.twitter.com/aB9QqzmMlH
— Stu (@thestustustudio) January 10, 2024
Khalil, a green card holder, was detained days after protesters at an event he attended distributed Hamas propaganda. Since Khalil’s arrest, the legal team has argued that he is being persecuted for free speech.
During the workshop, the lawyers also coached the protesters on how to respond to questions about Hamas, what to do when re-entering the US from international travel, and how to avoid scrutiny of “sensitive materials” on digital devices when entering the US.
Tight ‘progressive’ network
The activist network has ties to the broader progressive movement. In 2022, Kassem was appointed as a senior policy adviser for immigration by the Biden administration. Recent donors to the CUNY Law foundation include MacKenzie Scott and the Foundation to Promote Open Society.
Other legal groups also collaborate with the protesters. Within Our Lifetime urges followers to contact the National Lawyers Guild if they are arrested, and the two groups have collaborated on campaigns. Kiswani was a member of the guild while a student at CUNY Law, and the guild backed Mohammed after her 2023 commencement speech.
The guild’s New York City chapter dispatches “observers” to anti-Israel street protests, many of whom wear keffiyehs and anti-Israel apparel. The guild backed the October 7 attack on Israel the day after the onslaught.
In addition to CLEAR, lawyers representing Khalil have come from progressive legal groups that have engaged in anti-Israel activism, such as the Center for Constitutional Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union, whose New York branch has filed lawsuits against Columbia and CUNY Law on behalf of anti-Israel activists.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a free speech group that has both condoned and condemned Columbia protests, has also defended Khalil, saying his detention threatens free speech protections.
Lawyers from CLEAR are also representing another Columbia anti-Israel student activist, Yunseo Chung, who sued the Trump administration this week against her deportation.
Pro-Israel movement more fractured than pro-Palestinians
The anti-Israel protest movement in New York is ideologically cohesive in its commitment to Israel’s destruction. There aren’t any non-Jewish pro-Palestinian protest groups in New York calling for peace and two states, and none condemn Hamas or October 7. Palestinian advocates who don’t toe the line are shouted down. Kiswani has openly endorsed Hamas and the Columbia protesters have said, “Violence is the only path.” The protests have disrupted life in the city, targeting cancer patients, museums, memorials, libraries, transportation hubs and holiday events. Outright support for US-designated terrorist groups is common.
The counterweight to the movement is the network of Zionist Jewish organizations, including legal groups such as the Brandeis Center, the Lawfare Project, and the National Jewish Advocacy Center.
The pro-Israel movement is well-funded and longstanding, but more fractured in its politics, approach and outlook, ranging from leftists sympathetic to the Palestinians to the more combative right-wing. The movement has also been eclipsed in some areas. Community leaders acknowledged that the movement had “lost the streets” even before October 7, despite events like New York’s massive, annual Celebrate Israel parade.
In the legal realm, Jewish groups are seeking to regain ground under the pressure of war and surging antisemitism. Pro-Israel legal groups only recently began coordinating lawsuits filed around the US, for example. The pro-Israel legal offensive is gaining steam and evolving, though, with lawsuits filed against universities, activists and nonprofits making their way through courts around the country. Some of the lawsuits are making novel use of civil rights protections, opening new fronts in the lawfare battle. A New York nonprofit that has handled funding for an array of activist groups, including Within Our Lifetime and Students for Justice in Palestine, is facing a potential collapse due to lawsuits. Universities like Columbia are being battered from both sides.
In the latest legal salvo, this week, pro-Israel lawyers filed a lawsuit against street protesters and Columbia activists, alleging that the groups function as Hamas’s “propaganda arm” in New York and on campus. Kiswani and Khalil are among the defendants.
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