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This is an adapted excerpt from the May 6 episode of “All In with Chris Hayes.”
On Wednesday, a federal appeals court ruled that detained Tufts University Ph.D. student Rumeysa Öztürk must be transferred from a detention center in Louisiana, where she has been held for over a month, to Vermont within a week. There, a judge will hear her appeal to be released on bail.
Öztürk, a legal resident in the U.S. on a student visa, was snatched off the street by plainclothes immigration agents earlier this year. She is currently being imprisoned for her protected free speech, seemingly after she wrote an op-ed in her school paper last year that was critical of Israel’s war in Gaza and Tufts’ response to student protests.
Cities and universities are collaborating with the Trump administration’s pressure campaign.
Öztürk's detention is part of what appears to be an authoritarian attempt to criminalize thought, political speech and protest in this country. Donald Trump and his administration are attempting to use the full force of the government to punish those who disagree with U.S. support for Israel’s war.
We have seen the state weaponized against legal immigrants like Öztürk, Mahmoud Khalil and others. It is also cracking down on U.S. citizens, putting enormous pressure on public and private universities where some of the most organized and active protests surrounding Gaza have formed.
On Wednesday night, at least 80 people were detained at Columbia University after protesters occupied the school’s main library and refused to leave. New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who has aligned himself closely with Trump, called the protest “unacceptable.”
This kind of stuff is happening all over the country: Cities and universities are collaborating with the Trump administration’s pressure campaign. According to reporting from The Intercept, New York University tried to bar more than 30 pro-Palestinian law students who were under disciplinary investigations from taking their final exams if they did not first renounce their right to protest. The university later walked back that demand amid public pressure.
In a statement to the Intercept, a university official said, “It is not the case that any student is prohibited from taking in-person exams or accessing student health centers as a result of engaging in protest activity. In cases concerning reports of serious disciplinary violations, some students have been asked to sign a use of space agreement which restates the Law School’s policy prohibiting disruption during the reading and exam period.”
In Texas, a federal lawsuit was filed last week accusing the University of Texas at Austin of collaborating with the state government to suppress “pro-Palestine speech, in violation of the First Amendment.” Part of that suit includes body cam audio of a police officer questioning the legality of arresting peaceful protesters.
It is the closest thing I have seen to McCarthyism in my lifetime. It is an attempt to take a specific, constitutionally protected ideological perspective and intimidate people away from expressing it through threats of force and banishment.
It has gotten to the point where, when I saw viral images of musician Dave Matthews holding up signs reading “Stop the Genocide” and “Stop Killing Children,” my first thought was to check his immigration status for fear that the Trump administration would have him deported. (Turns out he is a naturalized U.S. citizen.)
But it is crucial not to lose sight of what these people are protesting in the first place. Gaza has been bombed for a year and a half. According to Save the Children, 15,000 children have reportedly been killed since the start of the war. The United Nations reports that 1.9 million people have been displaced, as the whole strip has been effectively razed to the ground. (The Israeli military has repeatedly said it does “everything possible to limit civilian casualties in Gaza.”)
All of which happened with the sometimes tacit — often explicit — support of the Biden administration, according to a new investigation from Israel’s Channel 13, which included interviews with nine current and former U.S. officials. That report was translated by Drop Site News and shared on X.
After all that, the Trump administration says the real extremism is happening on college campuses. Now, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is moving on to the newest phase of his plan, which, at least as reported and communicated by ministers in his own government, appears to be bringing about an ethnic cleansing in Gaza. B’Tselem, a prominent Israeli human rights group, has said that ethnic cleansing is already underway. (Israel has strongly denied accusations of ethnic cleansing in Gaza.)
But Netanyahu and his administration are openly promising to destroy everything in Gaza and to make life there so miserable that 2 million Palestinians will be forced to flee, and hopes for the return of the remaining hostages being held by Hamas are almost certainly extinguished.
Just this week, Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said, “Gaza will be completely destroyed,” causing civilians to “leave in large numbers to third countries.”
“This will change the reality, the history of the state of Israel for decades to come,” he continued. “We must invent much more than this, especially politically vis-à-vis the United States, and get those third countries. There is a good discourse that is moving forward with them and it should be much more meaningful.”
Smotrich is not the only member of Netanyahu’s government openly saying stuff like this. In March, The Times of Israel quoted National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir as saying, “Gaza must endure hell. And hell also means bombing all the aid depots that Hamas holds,” as well as halting the supply of electricity and water,
Doing so, he continued, “will cause mass starvation of Hamas terrorists and their supporters in the Gaza Strip and will allow us to return to war with tremendous force, when Hamas terrorists are weak and exhausted, without any significant ability to fight back — and we can crush them without difficulty.”
On Wednesday, Chef Jose Andres’ World Central Kitchen announced on social media that “[a]fter serving more than 130 million total meals and 26 million loaves of bread over the past 18 months, World Central Kitchen no longer has the supplies to cook meals or bake bread in Gaza.”
It’s been more than two months since Israel announced it would stop all goods and humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. Instead of opposing that, our government is enabling it. The Trump administration has been talking about what country will take in the Palestinians through mass population transfers — a phrase that recalls some of the worst episodes in human history.
The Times of Israel quoted National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir as saying, "Gaza must endure hell."
We are facing a U.S. and Israeli policy that is more aggressively radical and extremist, more flagrantly in violation of all international law and human rights, than ever before. But if you point that out, the Trump administration may try to label you a terrorist, an enemy of the state, and have you removed from the country.
Meanwhile, too many top figures in the Democratic Party have effectively abdicated their leadership on this issue. What exactly are young Americans who have increasingly soured on Israeli policy in Gaza supposed to do? Should students shut up and pretend their government isn’t reportedly abetting mass civilian death and population transfer?
I can tell you this: No amount of repression and bullying is going to successfully stamp out the movement against this carnage, and if history is any indication, it is just as likely to make the movement stronger.