Georgetown Doubles Down on Its Anti-Israel Animus

Georgetown University has decided to remain all in for “Palestine” and to support the postdoctoral student whom the government would like to deport: “Georgetown University under the microscope as White House scrutinizes campus antisemitism,” by Haley Cohen, Jewish Insider, March 28, 2025:

In the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7, Georgetown Law School hosted Palestinian writer Mohammed El-Kurd, who celebrated Hamas as a “liberation movement” and called the massacre a “resistance tactic.” In February, the law school planned to host an event with a Palestinian terrorist convicted for his role in the murder of an Israeli girl, which the university canceled shortly before following pressure from pro-Israel students and lawmakers.

Georgetown Law School had no qualms about hosting a lecture by Mohammed el-Kurd, who described the October 7, 2023 attack by 6,000 Hamas operatives as a “resistance tactic.” Sounds noble, doesn’t it? But what he was describing was the mass rape, torture, mutilation, and murder of 1,200 people. Babies were burned alive. Women had their breasts sliced off. Men had their genitalia cut off, and their eyes gouged out, while they were still alive. Families were bound together with wire and then set on fire. Calling such acts “resistance” is grotesque. The word ennobles: we are put in mind of the French Resistance, of the réseau Gallia, of Jean Moulin, and of the fictional Victor Laszlo, who symbolizes cinematically the Europe-wide resistance against the Nazis. “Resistance” is not the right word for those Hamas sadists who committed those atrocities on October 7.

While university administration has not publicly commented on Brown’s rhetoric nor many of the other incidents on campus, the day following Suri’s detainment, Georgetown University Interim President Robert Groves and Joel Hellman, dean of the School of Foreign Service, where Suri was a fellow, condemned the arrest and planned deportation in a campus-wide email.

In the email, which was posted to Georgetown’s website, Groves wrote that the university “needs students and faculty with different worldviews.”

On what basis did Georgetown’s President Robert Groves, and Joel Hellman, dean of the School of Foreign Service, condemn the arrest of Bandar Khan Suri? They were not privy to the information about Suri’s activities that the DHS possesses, and describes as demonstrating support for, and promotion of, Hamas. DHS knows, as the Georgetown administrators do not, of his close family ties to a former adviser of Hamas’ then-head Ismail Haniyeh — that adviser is Suri’s father-in-law. Why should these Georgetown administrators in knee-jerk fashion refuse to believe that the DHS might actually have good reason for detaining Bandar Khan Suri? Instead of sending campus-wide emails deploring his arrest, ought they not have said something else? They might, for example, have said that “we have not received the evidence on which the Department of Homeland Security relied in taking Bandar Khan Suri into custody, so will not be able to suitably comment until then.” That would be the sensible thing to do.

“We must in turn build an environment where all members of our community are free to express their thoughts. The University has rules that protect our community members’ rights to free and open inquiry, deliberation and debate, even if the underlying ideas may be difficult, controversial or objectionable,” Groves said, arguing that the school’s Jesuit roots “require that we strive to live ‘the Ignatian Presupposition,’ interpreted in Jesuit education as the idea that we must always begin with the assumption that others are acting with good will. Sincere dialogue requires listening, really listening, as well as speaking.”

It is not “free and open inquiry” that is at stake here, but whether or not a foreign national, allowed into our country to study — a great privilege — should be allowed to remain if it is shown that he supports, in various ways that will be revealed, a group hellbent on the genocide of the Jews of Israel, and that country’s replacement by a 23rd Arab state.

In a separate email to SFS [School of Foreign Service], Hellman said, “Like many in our community, Dr. Suri has been exercising his constitutionally protected rights to express his views on the war in the Middle East.” He argued that the detention brings a “chilling effect such events could have on freedom of expression on this campus” and said the university will “determine what additional steps it can take” to support Suri as he heads to court, already having filed a writ of habeas corpus on his behalf….

Dean Hellman misses the point. Badar Khan Suri is not being detained because of the expression of his “views on the war in the Middle East.” He can deplore that war, and Israel’s conduct of it, all he wants. But he cannot expect to be allowed to voice his support for Hamas, a group that the American government has designated a terrorist organization, and remain in this country. As Secretary Rubio has said, if the views of those detained had been known before they came to this country, they would never have been allowed in. His family ties to Hamas — his father-in-law was a senior Hamas adviser — need to be, and will be, fully investigated. Suri will have his day in court, and we will then see just how innocent he is of connections to, and support of, Hamas.