Mahmoud Khalil claims it's 'racist' to ask Palestinians to condemn terror group Hamas

Pro-Hamas activist Mahmoud Khalil spoke at the South by Southwest festival in Austin on Sunday and said that to ask a Palestinian, like himself, to condemn terror group Hamas is "very racist." Khalil, who was on the verge of having his student visa and green card revoked following violent, anti-Jewish, anti-American protests on the campus of Columbia University before a judge intervened, was also recently the guest of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani at Gracie Mansion.

He was asked on the SXSW stage about his refusal to condemn the Hamas terror group, which staged a violent massacre in Israel on October 7, 2023. He said the ask for him to condemn it was "disingenuous and absurd." 

"It's very racist to ask a Palestinian this question just to validate their views," he said. Khalil has a US green card and holds a Syrian passport. "I don't see them asking any Israeli of American politician about condemning all the killing that's happening—whether in Lebanon and Palestine and Iran, anywhere." He apparently missed the repeated questions to Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, or other politicians asking them to condemn Israel's actions following that 2023 massacre.

"That sort of hypocrisy and double standards that being used against us," Khalil said, "I refuse to be part of that, and they would never answer such a question."

Khalil has defended the massacre of some 1,200 people carried out by Hamas. Speaking to Ezra Klein of The New York Times, he said the attack was "just to break the cycle, to break that Palestinians are not being heard. And to me, it's a desperate attempt to tell the world that Palestinians are here, that Palestinians are here, that Palestinians are part of the equation. That was my interpretation of why Hamas did the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel."

Khalil cited "international law" on the killing of Israelis by Hamas terrorists, saying "There’s nothing that can justify the killing of civilians — and the international law is very clear about that. We cannot pick and choose when international law applies to us or to others. But also, there’s another point to this, Ezra: Palestinians don’t have to be perfect victims. That’s what the world is asking of Palestinians amid the dispossession, the occupation, the killing, all of that."

He further complained that after the massacre, Columbia University didn't speak out enough against Israel defending itself against Hamas terrorists and the casualties that came from that.