Columbia University graduate and pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil.

It seems the Trump administration was right about Mahmoud Khalil. He really is a hothead with iffy views that grate against America’s geopolitical interests.

Khalil is the Syrian-born activist who played a key role in the ugly rage against Israel that gripped Columbia University in New York City last year. He made global headlines in March when he was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and detained for 104 days as the State Department investigated his campus antics.

His Israel-bashing activism, which feverishly depicts the Jewish nation as the most wicked nation and America as an idiot for supporting it, is harmful to our foreign policy, said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. So we might have to send him packing.

Khalil became a cause celebre among campus rads and the Berniecrat Left. “What about his free speech?!” cried people who’ve spent the past decade cancelling feminists for saying you can’t have a penis and be a woman. Eventually Khalil was released, after a judge ruled his detention “unconstitutional”. Phew, said his witless cheerleaders, for this is a man of good moral temperament, not an anti-Israel bigot.

Really? A new interview with Khalil suggests otherwise. It suggests Rubio and the rest were on to something when they furrowed their brows over these foreign visitors to the US who whip up crazed animus against Israel.

Khalil sat down for a chat with Ezra Klein of the New York Times. And he has damned himself with his own words.

Consider the Hamas question. Khalil and his champions insisted he was not “pro-Hamas”. Okay, well maybe they can explain why he speaks so sympathetically about Hamas’s most barbarous act: its October 7 pogrom.

“Unfortunately, we couldn’t avoid such a moment,” he says of that atrocity. We? Why would someone who opposes Hamas use the first-person plural pronoun when talking about its mass violence?

His words lend a gloss of legitimacy to what Hamas did that day. It was “just” an attempt to “break the cycle”. It was a “desperate attempt to tell the world that Palestinians… are part of the equation”.

Khalil makes October 7 sound like a therapeutic cry for help. The only people who were crying for help that day, Mahmoud, were the Israeli women being raped and the Israeli children being murdered.

He pays lip service to the tragic nature of October 7. “Targeting civilians is wrong…”, he says. “But” – but! – “Palestinians don’t have to be perfect victims.”

Wait, what? What a messed-up thing to say about the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust. He seems to be implying that anyone who comes down too heavily on October 7 is making unreasonable demands of Palestinians to be “perfect victims”. No, we’re just asking them not to invade Israel and butcher its men, women and children.

He also says there was a “manufactured hysteria about anti-Semitism at Columbia”. Would he, or anyone else on the Left, so cavalierly minimise racism against any other minority? I doubt it.

Anti-Semitism was rife at Columbia during those unhinged protests against Israel. Jewish students were harassed, the Jewish nation was branded the “scum of nations” and the “pigs of the Earth”. Shame on Khalil for downplaying this explosion in Jew-hate among Ivy League brats in 2024. He also defends the chilling chant “Globalise the Intifada”. The Second Intifada (2000-2005) involved some violent acts, he graciously concedes, but it was “overwhelmingly” a “peaceful” uprising.

What drivel. A thousand Israelis were massacred in the Second Intifada. They were torn apart in bus bombings, blown up at pizzerias, slain at discotheques. First we had CNN referring to “mostly peaceful” BLM riots. Now we have Khalil yapping about a mostly peaceful violent uprising against the world’s only Jewish state.

Jews in the West are right to be sickened by the chant “Globalise the Intifada”. They know what it means: that Hamas’s violent loathing of Jews should be exported around the world.

The interview is an eye-opener. It confirms just how pathological the “Palestine cause” has become not only for Khalil but for huge numbers of privileged radicals across the West.

Their frothing contempt for Israel has robbed them of their moral reason and even basic decency. To such an extent that they can say “we” and make apologetic noises in relation to that day of abject savagery.

Does America benefit from having people like Khalil? After this interview, many will say a resounding No.

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Israel signs record $35 billion gas export deal with Egypt

NewMed, which leads the Leviathan Partnership, described the deal as “the most significant move since the discovery of gas reserves in Israel.”

In the largest export deal in Israel’s history, NewMed Energy and its Leviathan gas partners have signed a $35 billion agreement to supply approximately 130 billion cubic meters (BCM) of natural gas to Egypt by 2040.

The agreement, finalized with Egypt’s Blue Ocean Energy, significantly upgrades a previous deal and is expected to bolster regional energy cooperation while securing Israel’s domestic gas needs for decades.

NewMed, which leads the Leviathan Partnership, described the deal as “the most significant move since the discovery of gas reserves in Israel.”

The gas will continue flowing from the Leviathan reservoir, which began supplying Egypt in 2020 under an earlier agreement covering 60 BCM. So far, 23.5 BCM have been delivered, at an annual rate of around 4.5 BCM, including spot sales.

“This deal reflects a deep and mutual appreciation between Delek Group and our Egyptian partners, with whom we continue a long path of economic cooperation. For us, this is not only an extraordinary business achievement – it is a historic milestone that strengthens regional cooperation and promotes stability and hope in the Middle East,” said Yitzhak Tshuva, the controlling shareholder of the Delek Group. The Delek Group is an Israeli multinational holding company of which NewMed is a subsidiary.

This new deal, effectively an expansion of the original agreement, will be rolled out in two phases. Phase One will involve an additional 20 BCM, with deliveries expected to begin in 2026 following the completion of critical infrastructure upgrades.

These include a third pipeline from the reservoir to the production platform—boosting capacity beyond 14 BCM per year, and completion of the Ashdod–Ashkelon transmission line, which will allow greater flow through the EMG pipeline to Egypt. Under this phase, 2 BCM per year will be exported.

Phase Two covers the sale of another 110 BCM, contingent on the Leviathan Expansion Project (known as Phase 1B) and the construction of a new pipeline via Nitzana. Once these are operational, Leviathan’s capacity will rise to 21 BCM annually, about 30% higher than its current output, allowing for up to 12 BCM per year to be exported under the agreement.

The pricing structure is pegged to Brent crude oil, and the deal is subject to the finalization of an export permit and final investment decision (FID) for the expansion. In February, Leviathan partners submitted an updated development plan aiming for a 21 BCM annual production rate, with the potential to reach 23 BCM.

Future infrastructure plans include additional drilling, expanded subsea systems, upgrades to the production platform, and the possible addition of a fourth pipeline.

According to the latest resource reports, the Leviathan field still holds around 600 BCM, with production projected to continue through at least 2064. The Energy Ministry has forecast total export volumes from Leviathan could reach between 118 and 145 BCM beyond the current commitments.

'The Leviathan is a tool for strategic reality change'

“This is a historic day, when Newmed Energy changes the rules of the game of the regional energy economy, and proves once again that Leviathan, the largest natural gas field in the Mediterranean, is a tool for strategic reality change,” said Yossi Abu, CEO of NewMed Energy.

He hailed the deal as “the largest and most significant in the history of our natural gas sector, and one of the largest in the history of the country.”

“This is a deal that strengthens stability in our region and paves the way for the expansion of Leviathan, a move that will allow us to increase the quantities of natural gas we produce and strengthen energy security in the Israeli economy.”

He also acknowledged key figures behind the agreement, including Delek Group owner Yitzhak Tshuva and NewMed chairman Gabi Last, and suggested that similar deals with other countries may follow soon.

One of the world’s largest deep-water natural gas discoveries. Leviathan began pumping gas to Israel in 2019.