The Palestinian immigrant gained attention for his comments after Hamas’s October 2023 invasion of Israel, which involved terrorists paragliding into a music festival and killing civilians, burning people alive, raping women, taking 251 hostages, and filming violent acts on camera.

Mahdawi told a CBS News reporter that year that while he may not “justify” the massacre, he “can empathize” with the perpetrators.

“When somebody’s hurting you, when you see this person is being punched in the face, and this feeling, it is ‘you now feel my pain,'” he said on CBS’s 60 Minutes.

“To empathize is to understand the root cause and to not look at any event or situation in a vacuum,” he said. “This is, for me, the path moving forward.”

The activist also helped write a statement by activist groups that called the Oct. 7 attacks “resistance” and blamed them on America and Israel, according to an October 2023 interview by Valley News.

“We remind Columbia students that the Palestinian struggle for freedom is rooted in international law, under which occupied peoples have the right to resist the occupation of their land,” the statement said. “If every political avenue available to Palestinians is blocked, we should not be surprised when resistance and violence break out. The international community is quick to affirm Israel’s right to protect itself but does not extend this same right to Palestinians. Israel does not have the right to defend its occupation, its apartheid state or its siege of Gaza.”

As Americans mourn the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history, the Knight Institute says it will use Mahdawi and other figures on Sept. 9 and 10 to highlight “the ongoing impact of the War on Terror on democratic rights.” The group referred to Mahdawi as a “Palestinian human rights advocate.”

“This September we will mark 25 years since 9/11,” the Knight Institute said. “Many of us will be reflecting on the losses and the meaning of that day, and on how the legacies of that day still shape lives in New York, across the country, and around the world a quarter century later.”

“Pervasive secrecy and censorship hid war crimes, torture, and other grave human rights abuses,” the announcement says. “Surveillance programs proliferated, from the [New York Police Department’s] targeting of New York Muslim communities to digital surveillance operations of unprecedented scope and reach. Anti-terrorism legislation criminalized forms of peaceful speech and association.” The institute rejoiced that “new forms of resistance, solidarity, and even accountability” sprang up in response.

The Trump administration referenced broad authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act to deport noncitizens such as Mahdawi, alleging he poses “serious adverse foreign policy consequences,” court records show.

Immigration officials also pointed to previous Vermont police investigations in which interviewees mentioned concerning comments from Mahdawi. He allegedly talked about how he used guns to “kill Jews while he was in Palestine” and made firearms for Hezbollah, a Lebanese terrorist group.

DSA CANDIDATE INTERNED AT HAMAS ‘GREENHOUSE’ SCHOOL INFAMOUS FOR TERRORIST RECRUITMENT

Mahdawi argued his free speech is under attack in a July response to the latest court ruling in the government’s favor.

“Enough is enough,” he told the leftist outlet Democracy Now! “Palestinian people deserve to have safety, freedom and equal rights between the river and the sea, and this government is trying to silence me.”