An open letter to Mahmoud Khalil and Noor Abdalla’s newborn child – Mondoweiss

Dear Deen,

Before I knew your name, I knew what my government wanted to name you. Criminal. Terrorist. Problem. A threat to national security. Better off dead. Everything they want to name your father: Mahmoud Khalil. Everything except a precious child of God, which you are. 

When I heard two plainclothes I.C.E. agents abducted your father for protesting the genocide in Gaza, I trembled. When I found out he was captured at Columbia University, where I teach, right in front of…