Opinions of Peter Belmont
Speaking Truth to Power
| A Legal Brief Supporting Mahmoud Khalil |
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by Peter A. Belmont / 2025-03-12
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| The question I discuss below, is whether public speech by a non-citizen which seeks to alter a USA foreign policy (“F/P”) can “endanger” that F/P when that speech is in essence the same as the public speech of a vastly larger number of citizens also seeking to alter the same F/P. I write in the spirit of an attorney arguing in support of Mahmoud Khalil. In a monarchy, laws and F/Ps are determined, as a constitutional matter, so to speak, by a single “power” independent of the will of the people. In the USA, by contrast, as a constitutional matter, one function of “free speech” is to allow the exchange of INFORMATION and OPINION about all matters of government including F/P, this for the purpose of allowing the public to influence existing governmental policies and of course to influence up-coming elections. The USA may well “have” a F/P determined in smoke-filled rooms and implemented by a so-called “deep-state”, but none of that is to say that “the people” do not have the right to exercise their “free speech” rights in an attempt to change that F/P. The idea that speech delivered in public by citizens can “endanger” the F/P of the USA would make sense only if the F/P of the USA is conceived of as an entity separate from and “above” or “beyond” attempts by “the people” to change it. And if non-citizens residing, or merely present as visitors, in the USA have “free speech” rights—a constitutional matter of which I am ignorant—then they too should have the right to speak freely about F/P in an attempt to share opinion, but more important to share INFORMATION which they may have more of than many others in USA due to their experiences elsewhere in the world, that is, in particular, in places where the USA’s F/P is having noteworthy effects. Now, of course, there may be “fifth columns” in the USA, groups of people, composed of citizens and/or of non-citizens, seeking to mold USA’s F/P to suit the goals of foreign entities. It is a question whether or not the public speech activities of members of such groups may “endanger” USA F/P. AIPAC and its allies come to mind here. I suppose that a sufficiently large “fifth column” composed solely of non-citizens could attempt to change, and thus from some viewpoints to damage or “endanger”, the USA’s F/P, However, it strains the imagination to suggest that a relatively few non-citizen individuals saying in public the very same things that a far greater number of citizens are also saying can endanger the USA’s F/P, since, as I argue above, the function of “free speech” is precisely to allow the citizen-public to manipulate government policy which is, I suggest, theirs (the citizen-public’s) to manipulate, to form, to challenge, and so forth. In the case of Mahmoud Khalil, I take it to be fact (I assume) that whatever he was saying at demonstrations to end USA support for the genocide (a/k/a “war”) in Gaza was the same, in substance, as what American citizens in far greater numbers were also saying. If what he was saying “endangers” USA F/P, as Secetary of State Marco Rubio is reported to have asserted in legal papers, then there must be a difference between criticizing a government policy as a non-citizen (the non-citizen has fantastic power to “endanger” a government policy by speech) and criticizing the same government policy as a citizen (the citizen does not “endanger” a policy but may seek to support, to change, to abolish that policy, but in no-wise to “endanger” it). Because, after all, USA F/P —au fond – is the policy of the American people and not, as I suggested above, the policy of a “deep-state”, “dictator”, or other entity wholly independent of he expressed views of the citizen-public. If Mahmoud Khalil were part of a very large group of non-citizens attempting, by public-speech, to alter a USA F/P in a way different from the well-expressed views of the American public, it might perhaps be said that such attempt to alter F/P was an attempt to “endanger” that policy. But where, as here—I assume—the group, if it be a group, of non-citizens advancing by public-speech a cohesive view of the need to alter USA F/P is, numerically, vastly smaller than the number of American citizens advancing by public-speech the very same cohesive view of the need to alter USA F/P, then, I argue, their efforts do not “endanger” USA F/P any more than the similar and much greater efforts of USA citizens. Having said all the above, it may also be noted that the public-speech efforts of the Pro-Palestine (or anti-genocide) people in the demonstrations at Columbia were not (formally) asking for a change of USA F/P but were, instead, as I understand it, asking their university to divest from companies supporting that war (or genocide). This, of course, raises a different set of questions relating to laws forbidding boycotts generally or against Israel in particular; but does not take the entire matter away from considerations of “free speech” and “endangerment”. Taking on these questions might also lead to questions on the constitutionality of such anti-boycott laws. I everything above, I have suggested that NUMBERS of people is the proper measure of political influence. However, in the USA, MONEY is often a more important measure of influence. The vast wealth of AIPAC and its allies has allowed the Zionist movement to control aspects of USA F/P since about 1967. That makes the success, such as it has been, of anti-Occupation or anti-genocide, activity in the USA in recent years all the more remarkable. Because AIPAC-et-al have such a larger MEGAPHONE than he protesters. |
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