PBS: Amanpour Lets Columbia Protest Leader Mahmoud Khalil Call Protests Peaceful, Deny Hamas Support

PBS replayed Christiane Amanpour’s July 2025 interview with Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University protest leader who was later detained by ICE.

In the segment, Khalil dismissed accusations that he supported Hamas as “absurd” and insisted the Columbia protests were simply about pressuring the U.S. and the university to stop backing Israel’s war in Gaza. He also described the Columbia protests as peaceful.

But that simply isn’t true. Here are just a few documented examples proving otherwise:

On May 7, 2025, pro-Palestinian protesters stormed and occupied Butler Library’s main reading room, hanging Palestinian flags, defacing the space with slogans like “Columbia will burn,” and declaring it a “liberated zone.” NYPD officers in riot gear intervened; at least 40–80 students were arrested, many in zip-tie handcuffs, and two university safety officers were injured. Some protesters had to be taken out on stretchers.

The acting university president condemned the disruption during finals, stating there was “violence and vandalism, hijacking a library—none of that has any place on our campus.”

In the aftermath, Columbia imposed its largest disciplinary crackdown in history — nearly 80 students suspended, expelled, or stripped of degrees for their role in the encampments and occupations.

And here’s the larger reality: Hamas has controlled Gaza since 2007 — running its ministries, police, and armed brigades, collecting taxes, and issuing laws. Hamas is designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., EU, Canada, and many others.

When protesters in the U.S. or elsewhere call themselves “pro-Palestinian” and focus their activism on Gaza, they are — knowingly or not — engaging with a territory that is fully run by Hamas. Since Hamas is the authority in Gaza, any push to “support Gaza” inevitably overlaps with supporting a Hamas-controlled government, whether activists intend it or not.

Yet PBS continues to replay the interview without serious challenge, giving Khalil’s denials airtime as if they were the full truth — while the facts of Hamas’s control in Gaza and the violence at Columbia are left unaddressed.