My Friend Mohsen Stood For Dialogue. ICE Arrested Him.
Mohsen Mahdawi was a champion of open discourse—not a threat to national security.
During a citizenship test in Vermont on April 14, Mohsen Mahdawi GS ‘25 was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Mahdawi's friend caught it on video. Before stepping into the black car, his cuffed hands in front of him, he looks at the camera, smiles, and lifts his hands to make two peace signs. Despite the emotional weight of being arrested, he had his usual poised and relaxed demeanor.
It felt wrong. In my experience, Mohsen was an advocate for dialogue and cross-partisanship. Yet here he was, getting shoved into a vehicle by ICE.
I met Mohsen two years ago at a dinner party. He wore gold-rimmed glasses—the same pair from the video of his arrest—jeans, and a well-fitted grey sports coat. A mutual friend introduced us. My first conversation with Mohsen still sits with me. He was genuinely curious about me, asking questions ranging from my romantic life to my academic career. We got to talking about my public speaking anxiety, and he instinctually offered me some tips. At the end of the night, he came up to me again and complimented my blue suit before we exchanged numbers and said goodbye.
I only found out about Mohsen’s upbringing recently—the fact that he was born in a refugee camp in the West Bank, and how he saw his best friend killed by an Israeli soldier. He never told me these things himself. Reflecting on our introductory conversation, I find it unfathomable that he could endure so much yet embody such warmth and hope. Beyond this, my mind was fixated on the fact that his life was so much more harrowing than mine, yet he still asked about mine with such immense interest.
We stayed in touch during the several years I took off between graduating from Columbia College and returning for law school. Like so many of us, since my return to this campus, I have craved a healthier climate of discourse. Driven by this motivation, I now work with Bridge Columbia, a club dedicated to fostering civil dialogue, and the Listening Tables, another organization that aims to provide spaces for respectful political conversations. As part of these initiatives, I reached out to Mohsen early on, sensing that his aspirations were like mine.
I tell this story not to adjudicate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the legal legitimacy of Mohsen’s detainment, nor Trump. I do so, rather, to give an account of the Mohsen I know—the Mohsen who collaborated with us to create spaces for candid, thoughtful, and deliberative conversations. What made him remarkable was not only his dedication to his own community, but also his openness to Israeli perspectives, especially given the trauma of his past.
Throughout much of this semester, Mohsen spearheaded the organization of a cathartic space for all Columbians to vent about everything through the Listening Tables initiative: the constant University administration turnover, the Hamilton Hall takeover, arrests, detainments, antisemitism, and doxxing, just to name a few. Naturally, he was particularly interested in being a voice for the Palestinian cause, yet he remained mindful of the Israeli perspective and always wanted Jewish students to be part of the process.
On another occasion, when we were trying to organize an Israeli-Palestinian dialogue through Bridge Columbia, he guided us on how to frame the discussion to feel more accommodating to both Jewish and Muslim students: He suggested that the poster for the event should have the flags of both Israel and Palestine. Moreover, he even pushed for a panel event that featured professors and students from both communities conversing, not debating, in one space. Unfortunately, given the turmoil of the semester, the event never came to fruition. Mohsen’s pro-Palestinian activism was not rooted in the rejection of Israeli and Jewish voices, but instead hinged upon their inclusion.
In our conversations, it was clear that Mohsen recognized the limitations of activism while staying mindful of the emotional intensity induced by the conflict. As the Columbia Daily Spectator reported in November 2023, during a protest, Mohsen condemned an individual who shouted antisemitic slurs. And as The New York Times reported this month, Mohsen stepped away from campus activism before the encampments and takeover of Hamilton Hall last spring.
I think that was one reason why we—myself and other members of the Listening Tables team—had so many phone calls with him trying to organize discussion-centered events; he legitimately saw listening and bridge-building as the way out. Naturally, these moments might not capture his full political ethos. I don’t think anyone aside from him can provide that. But they point without question toward his commitment to conversation.
Not once in our many phone calls did he mention the idea of protest or advocate for navigating this conflict without dialogue. Mohsen often emphasized that achieving respectful and productive discourse would be challenging, suggesting it would be wiser to begin with moderates on each side before attempting to engage the fringes. Naturally, he viewed the war and recent events on campus through the lens of his country, his upbringing, and his trauma. But Mohsen nevertheless always pushed for discussions that involved Jewish voices.
Since beginning law school, I too have placed my faith in conversation. I have sought to immerse myself in many viewpoints, not only to understand them, but also to try to humanize the people who hold them.
Mohsen’s detainment makes this commitment to conversation impossible. Are conversations, at least in moments like these, futile? How can I have faith in them when Mohsen, who felt so indispensable to this project, is now indefinitely detained?
The Trump administration is targeting Mohsen because his conduct could "potentially undermine” the peace process in the Middle East, Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote in a memo earlier this month. While I cannot come up with the right way to characterize the broader political moment, I can at least say that this framing of Mohsen is wrong. It is indisputable that he was one of the few people, at least at Columbia, striving for conversations. Mohsen sought to create places for us to speak to one another, and this approach is a necessary component of any resolution to the tension and animosity on campus. We need his voice.
Mr. Gill is a first-year at Columbia Law School and a 2022 graduate of Columbia College.
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This piece would be more credible if it reckoned with some of the evidence widely reported elsewhere about this case, like the video showing the person with a megaphone in front of a giant "by any means necessary" banner, or the fact that he was a mediator for a group that broke rules by taking over a building. That is hard to square with the portrayal here, which is similar to what you might find in any left-wing publication and not what I expect from the Sundial.
A sweet Hamas supporter