Nina-Bytes: Eye of the Beholder

Editor’s note: Nina-Bytes is a regular blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web. Want more? Click here to subscribe to NIDC today. 

 

Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud

Generally speaking, I think most fair-minded people who aren’t themselves fascists can agree that you never “have to hand it to the nazis.” I must confess however that sometimes the shameless authoritarianism of Trump regime minions makes my job as a writer a lot easier. For example, people who haven’t been paying enough attention to the first two months of the Trump 2.0 era probably regard my argument that the Trump regime’s attempts to target anti-genocide protestors using “War on Terror” logic will lead to them targeting all protestors using that same logic, to be an extraordinary claim that in turn requires extraordinary evidence to prove. Which is why on some distant level I appreciate Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Troy Edgar for just blurting that part out loud during a recent media interview. For more details let’s check out this article by Julia Conley, writing for Common Dreams on March 13th, 2025.

DHS Official Explicitly Equates Protest to Terrorism in ‘Stunning’ Interview

“The Trump administration has accused Khalil, who is of Palestinian descent, of leading “activities aligned to Hamas” and protests where pro-Hamas propaganda was distributed, but officials have provided no evidence that he’s provided support to Hamas or other groups designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S. government.

A White House official this week told The Free Press that Khalil is not being accused of breaking any laws, but is rather “a threat to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States,” and Edgar’s comments to Martin offered further evidence evidence that DHS is working to deport Khalil without accusing him of a crime.

“He is coming in to basically be a student that is not going to be supporting terrorism,” said Edgar. “So, the issue is he was let into the country on this visa. He has been promoting this antisemitism activity at the university. And at this point, the State Department has revoked his visa for supporting a terrorist type organization.”

This story and the alarming quotes in it comes out of an interview with the DHS deputy secretary conducted by NPR’s Michel Martin; thus it’s important to note that Edgar isn’t expressly making a legal argument here. He is however absolutely working the court of public opinion to sway your perception about the legality of Trump’s unlawful arrest, detainment, and ongoing attempts to deport a former Columbia University student, Mahmoud Khalil; for protesting a genocide being conducted by Israel, against Palestinians in Gaza, which in turn has been facilitated by both the current, and prior US administrations.. A man who it must be pointed out is a green card holder and legally resides in the country with his wife, who is herself an American citizen.

With that in mind, the first thing I’d like to point out is the bizarre, manipulative, and legally irrelevant language Edgar uses in this interview. From a technical standpoint, the phrase “activities aligned with Hamas” is wholly unrelated to any law on the books in America, even our nightmare War on Terror era anti-terrorism laws. Simultaneously however, Edgar’s argument covers such a broad spectrum of activities that untold millions of Americans could potentially be “engaging in activities aligned with Hamas.” If for example, as in Khalil’s case, you’ve advocated for ending Israel’s genocide in Gaza, or halting the US government’s arm shipments to Israel that make it possible, you’ve technically engaged in “activities aligned with Hamas,” who also want the genocide and arms shipments to end.

Additionally, does anyone, including Troy Edgar know what “a terrorist type organization” means? You won’t find a single paragraph in US law that discusses prohibitions against supporting “a terrorist type organization,” and this is really just a way for the DHS Deputy Secretary to say Khalil is working for “terrorists” without exposing himself to liability for false accusations; it’s a poison phrase to turn public opinion against the accused, and in favor of the Trump administration’s unlawful and quite frankly fascist actions. This is of course setting aside that Edgar, much like the rest of the Trump regime, continues to use the War on Terror legal language of “supporting a terrorist organization” (typically financially, materially, or logistically) to describe protesting a genocide; a grotesque stretch of logical reality that also has no basis in American law that I’m aware of.

Finally of course, there’s the whole bombshell reveal this article is mostly based around to consider; a US Deputy Homeland Security Secretary just went on public radio and argued that legally nebulous “pro-Palestine activity,” and even just protesting against the Trump regime in general is literally “terrorism.” This wasn’t a slip of the tongue, the Trump administration’s official position is that being pro-Palestine, anti-genocide, or protesting the government makes you a domestic terrorist. While many disingenuous bootlickers will try to parse or minimize Troy Edgar’s words here, he was given plenty of opportunities to answer questions about what “terrorist” activities the government was alleging Khalil engaged in, and Troy continually repeated the phrases “pro-Palestinian activity” and “protesting.” Furthermore given that the entire Trump administration keeps making this “mistake” over and over again, it seems pretty reasonable to assume that at least from a propaganda perspective this is the regime’s official position on supporting Palestinians and protesting in general.

Folks can you think of any reason why an increasingly unpopular fascist administration presiding over the rapid impoverishment of the US labor class, and working with Israel to ethnically cleanse Gaza, would want to declare “pro-Palestinian activity” and “protesting” to be terrorist activity? Might it be because they expect a lot of Americans to start getting interested in Palestinians and protesting? If this is the official position the regime is willing to admit in public, I shudder to imagine what they’re planning in private as Israel moves to strangle the life out of Gaza and the United States careens towards becoming a dictatorship under Swine Emperor Trump.

 

 

– Nina Illingworth

 

Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic and analyst.

You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, and on Mastodon.

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