Columbia University protest leader blames Mossad after antisemitic, pro-terror statements surface

A prominent anti-Israel protest leader at Columbia University, Mohsen Mahdawi, blames the Mossad after a report surfaces his past antisemitic and pro-terror statements.

Mahdawi, a graduate student from the West Bank, was one of the leading campus activists at the New York university when anti-Israel protests rocked the campus after the start of the war.

He gained broader recognition when the Trump administration tried to deport him, leading to an ongoing court battle and support from politicians and leftist organizations, including Jewish groups.

A 101-page report released last week by researchers David Collier and Rachel Feldman found an alleged history of antisemitism and terror support by Mahdawi.

The report said that, in 2010, Mahdawi posted a call to “annihilate the Jews,” in 2013 he said Palestinians had the “capacity” to “kill and to wound,” in 2014, while in the US, he praised Hamas and Islamic Jihad, in 2018 he cursed Palestinian security forces as “traitors” for helping apprehend a Hamas terrorist who killed a rabbi, and in 2024 he praised “armed resistance in the West Bank and Gaza.”

Along with @raychfeldman, I went digging through years of archive material and social media posts.

Let us start long before he came to the U.S.

It is 2010 – his patience is wearing thin – and he promises that "soon, very soon, we will annihilate the Jews" pic.twitter.com/83wlJ3Jqj9

— David Collier (@mishtal) September 2, 2026

Other examples cited in the report included praise for terrorists killed by Israel and evidence of family ties to terror groups.

Mahdawi posts an apparent response on social media, saying, “ISRAELI MOSSAD broke into my Facebook and created chaos in an apparent attempt to fracture the solidarity between me and the Jewish community in the United States.”

“I stand for justice and peace. Palestinian liberation and the fight against antisemitism are inseparable. Z!on!sm is supremacy,” he writes.

“The hacking, fabrications and incitement of doubt and fear is how they control you. Zionism feeds on fear, segregation and trauma,” he says.

Mahdawi is scheduled to speak at Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University on Thursday.