If the Trump administration was looking for more evidence to present in the deportation case against Mahmoud Khalil, he just provided them with a gold mine. Speaking to Ezra Klein, who hosts a podcast for The New York Times, the Syrian national dismissed the atrocities of October 7th, instead justifying it as a necessary move by Palestinian terrorists.
He then went on to paint himself a victim, claiming emotional distress, not from seeing innocents slaughtered on live streams, but because “we had to reach this moment in Palestinian struggle.”
RELATED: Khalil Goes Free After Federal Judge Orders His Release From ICE Custody
August 5, 2025. 50 hostages still in Gaza. Mahmoud Khalil justifies Hamas’ attacks (again), now on @ezraklein show.
Khalil, interning at UNRWA during the attack, says 10/7 was unavoidable, “a desperate attempt to tell the world that Palestinians are here… Palestinians don’t… pic.twitter.com/cCWBoJc2rf
— Elisha (Lishi) Baker (@LishiBaker) August 5, 2025
KLEIN: I did a piece right after October 7, and one of the things that seemed clear to me, very, very quickly on that day, as you’re watching the images, as you’re hearing the screams, you’re seeing the videos of people of Jewish Israelis being paraded around of corpses is both that this attack is horrific and that the counterattack is going to be overwhelming. And that on some level, I understood that as something Hamas must have wanted. Pull Israel into this attack. Pull it into some kind of war. Maybe you involve other players in the Middle East, but a lot of lives were being used there as kind of chips on the table. Was that your perception? Or did you see this as something that needed to happen to break the equilibrium?
KHALIL: I think it’s more the latter. Just to break the cycle. To break that the Palestinians are not being heard. And to me, it’s a desperate attempt to tell the world that Palestinians are here, that Palestinians are part of the equation. That was my interpretation of why Hamas did the October 7 attacks on Israel. Because at that point, there was no political process. It was clear that the Saudi-Israel deal is very imminent. And Palestinians wouldn’t have any path to statehood and self-determination. So they had to do that.
One of the arguments made by supporters of Khalil is that he hasn’t actually expressed support for Hamas. To be clear, that was never true, and this is yet another example of him doing so. He quite literally says “they had to do that” in relation to October 7th, claiming the attack was necessary to stop Saudi Arabia and Israel from normalizing relations.
The moral bankruptcy of his words is hard to fathom. When Klein asks him if he was struck by the images of October 7th and the horrific violence they showed, Khalil dismisses them, instead saying his impression was “more the latter,” referring to Hamas needing to “break the equilibrium.” It doesn’t get any clearer than that. How could any judge see those comments and still come to the conclusion that the administration lacks evidence against Khalil regarding his support for terrorism, which is a disqualifying factor for someone to hold a green card?
As the interview continued, Khalil’s commentary only got more depraved and self-centered.
KLEIN: October 7 happens. What do you think that day at?
KHALIL: That day I was at the cinema with my wife, Noor, here in Lincoln Center. And when I left the cinema around like midnight, 12:30 AM, I started to receive all these notifications. And to me, it felt frightening that we had to reach this moment in the Palestinian struggle. And I remember I didn’t sleep for a number of days, and Noor was very worried about my health, and it was heavy. Like, I still remember I was like, “This couldn’t happen.”
So Khalil’s thoughts about October 7th weren’t with the victims because he was apparently the real victim. He didn’t sleep much, not because Hamas butchered innocent people and took nearly 300 hostages. He didn’t sleep because he was worried that “we had to reach this moment in the Palestinian struggle.”
Using the word “we” is very telling. Keep in mind, Khalil was working for the UNRWA at the time, which has deep ties to Hamas and has helped propagate murderous antisemitic sentiment in Gaza for decades. He clearly supports the October 7th attacks, but there seems to be more to this than that. That’s a string the Trump administration should be pulling hard on.
Even Klein, who is as far left and anti-Benjamin Netanyahu as one can get, seemed taken aback by Khalil’s statement, so he offered him a chance to clarify. The Syrian national chose to double down.
KLEIN: And what do you mean? “We had to reach this moment.” What moment is this?
KHALIL: I was interning at UNRWA at that point — the United Nations Relief and Works Agency — at the UN’s New York office. And as part of my internship, my research and work was focused on Palestine, on the situation in the West Bank and Gaza. And you can see that the situation is not sustainable. You have an Israeli government that’s absolutely ignoring Palestinians. They are trying to make that deal with Saudi and are just happy about their Abraham Accords without looking at Palestinians, as if Palestinians are not part of the equation.
Again, Khalil states that October 7th was justified because, otherwise, Israel would have made peace with the Saudis without the Palestinians being given a state. Later, he claimed “we couldn’t avoid such a moment,” again indicating he himself was part of the terrorist resistance. How many more times does he need to say it for the judge presiding over this case to take it seriously?
Hopefully, the Trump administration takes these latest admissions by Khalil and runs with them. It was insane that his deportation was stopped in the first place, but now there can be no doubt where he stands regarding support for Hamas. America can not have people who offer aid and comfort to terrorists holding visas and green cards. It’s incredible that we are even having to have this argument.
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