Researchers allege activist Mohsen Mahdawi may have supported terrorism
Researchers David Collier and Rachel Feldman published a 101-page report in which they alleged that Columbia University graduate student and pro-Palestinian activist Mohsen Mahdawi had allegedly provided long-term support for terrorism. According to the Jerusalem Post, the document is titled Mohsen Mahdawi: A Timeline of Support for Terrorism and is based on Arabic-language social media posts, archival materials, and public records.
Mahdawi arrived in the United States from the West Bank as a student and later obtained lawful permanent resident status. He is in deportation proceedings: U.S. immigration authorities argued that his university activism and statements could have negative consequences for U.S. foreign policy. The activist’s defense team and his political allies called his detention and removal proceedings a violation of freedom of speech and the right to due process.
Personal history
The report’s authors questioned Mahdawi’s account of his childhood in the Al-Fara’a refugee camp in the West Bank. The activist had previously said that his friend Hameida was shot dead before his eyes, and that his uncle Taer persuaded him at a friend’s grave to abandon revenge and focus on education.
Citing the databases of B'Tselem and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, Collier and Feldman assert that only one child was killed in Al-Fara’a during the Second Intifada — 14-year-old Muhammad Ahmad Mubarak Ishtaywi. According to them, the circumstances of his death do not match Mahdawi’s descriptions. The researchers also stated that Taer was killed on September 12, 2001, which, in their view, contradicts the chronology of this story.
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Posts and family ties
The report attributes a number of Facebook posts to Mahdawi that were published before his arrival in the United States in July 2014. The researchers claim that these posts included calls for violence against Jews, praise for attackers who killed six Israeli civilians near Eilat in 2011, as well as statements supporting Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin and Palestinian Islamic Jihad founder Fathi al-Shikaki.
The document also cites a 2015 Windsor police report and a subsequent FBI interview with Mahdawi following a statement by a gun store owner. According to the report, the owner claimed that the activist had expressed interest in purchasing automatic weapons and made alarming statements about his past.
Separately, the authors link several of Mahdawi’s relatives to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. They mention Taer and Amin Abu al-Kamal, Maysara Masharqa, and Yousef Mahdawi, who, according to the report, was convicted of recruiting a suicide bomber for an attack on a London cafe in 2003. The researchers also drew attention to a December 2024 video of Mahdawi in which he allegedly described student activism in the diaspora and armed resistance in the West Bank and Gaza as components of a shared struggle.
