Exclusive | Detained Columbia anti-Israel protester Mahmoud Khalil seethed with hatred for Jewish state, ex-classmate says

Detained anti-Israel protester Mahmoud Khalil seethed with hatred for the Jewish state, according to a former classmate who told The Post he was an “insidious” presence at Columbia University.The female graduate student, who is Jewish, said she even dropped a class they took together last fall at the Ivy’s famed School of International and Public Affairs because he made her feel so “uncomfortable” — and her formal complaints to the college fell on deaf ears.“It would almost be easier if he were some terrifying looking man who threatened to punch people in the face, but he wasn’t,” she said.“He was very soft-spoken and careful with his words, which almost made him seem more insidious, because it was so intentional – he was never being hyperbolic, he was very clear.

He was never joking.”“You know, he wears polos,” she continued.“It’s not like you meet him and are scared that he’s going to beat you up.

To me, it was scary how he was so clearly extreme and so unshakeable in his worldview, which is a very scary worldview, in my opinion.”Khalil’s laptop especially freaked her out.It strategically sported one sticker – a map of Israel and Palestine with the Jewish state completely blacked out as if it was wiped off the face of the Earth, she recalled.“It was just so clear that the thing driving him most in life is destroying Israel and everyone within it and anyone who supports it, and probably all Jews … That to me was scary, that something could consume you like that,” the first-year student said.Khalil, 30, also routinely boasted in class that he headed the Students for Justice in Palestine movement at Columbia and “didn’t love Jews.”He was a frequent no-show to class, which centered on Israeli politics, the student recalled.And when he did attend lectures, he disrespectfully interrupted his professor, who is Israeli.“Everything about Israel was illegitimate; everything about Zionism was illegitimate because,...