A group of 21 House progressives, led by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), introduced a resolution accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.

The legislation is cosponsored by Reps. Becca Balint (D-VT), Andre Carson (D-IN), Greg Casar (D-TX), Maxine Dexter (D-OR), Maxwell Frost (D-FL), Chuy Garcia (D-IL), Al Green (D-TX), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Hank Johnson (D-GA), Ro Khanna (D-CA), Summer Lee (D-PA), Jim McGovern (D-MA), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Mark Pocan (D-WI), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Delia Ramirez (D-IL), Lateefah Simon (D-CA), Nydia Velazquez (D-NY) and Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ).

Khanna, Ocasio-Cortez and Pressley are all seen as likely to seek higher office.

Dexter, notably, was elected on a generally pro-Israel platform with significant support from AIPAC’s United Democracy Project super PAC in a race against a candidate viewed as more anti-Israel, but has turned increasingly critical of the Jewish state in recent months.

Frost had previously told Jewish Insider he hesitated to use the term “genocide” himself, though he said he did not criticize others for doing so.

Casar is the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, while McGovern is the ranking member of the House Rules Committee.

Balint is the only Jewish member cosponsoring the resolution.

The resolution is backed by a slew of anti-Israel groups, including the Democratic Socialists of America, Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow, the Quincy Institute, Sunrise Movement, Amnesty International, Code Pink, CAIR, American Muslims for Palestine, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and DAWN.

The resolution asserts that “the overwhelming evidence is clear that the State of Israel has committed acts (actus reus) within the scope of the Genocide Convention against Palestinians in Gaza.”

It states that the U.S. must “prevent and punish the crime of genocide wherever it occurs,” and must therefore halt the transfer of any weapons or equipment to Israel, impose sanctions on Israel and individuals and companies involved in “facilitating the commission of genocide or incitement to commit genocide,” support efforts at the United Nations to punish Israel, cooperate with the International Criminal Court’s investigation of Israel and lift sanctions on the ICC, enforce the International Court of Justice’s decisions against Israel and ensure funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency — which was halted following findings that UNRWA employees participated in the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks.

It also states that the U.S. should “ensur[e] that individuals and corporations in the United States and within United States jurisdiction are not involved in the commission of genocide, aiding and assisting the commission of genocide, or incitement to commit genocide, and investigat[e] and prosecut[e] those who may be implicated in these crimes under international law.”

Among the various sources the resolution cites in accusing Israel of genocide is the International Association of Genocide Scholars, describing the group as the “world’s leading subject matter experts on genocide.” 

But supporters of Israel found, after the group’s vote to condemn Israel, that the association had an essentially open membership policy with no requirements of any actual subject matter expertise, beyond paying a membership fee of as little as $30.

The resolution also cites Amnesty International and other groups, which reinterpreted the legal definition of genocide in order to level that charge at Israel, as well as the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Israel, whose members have repeatedly faced accusations of blatant antisemitism.

The arrest on Monday of a Palestinian student at Columbia University who helped organize campus anti-Israel demonstrations was the latest front in the Trump administration’s closely scrutinized crackdown on foreign activists who have expressed sympathy for Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups. 

Mohsen Mahdawi, a 34-year-old green card holder born and raised in the West Bank, was arrested and detained by federal immigration officers on Monday after he appeared at a U.S. citizenship interview in Vermont, where he resides.

Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, said in an email to Jewish Insider on Tuesday that Mahdawi “was a ringleader in the Columbia protests,” sharing a New York Post article citing anonymous State Department sources claiming that he had used “threatening rhetoric and intimidation” against Jewish students.

“Due to privacy and other considerations, and visa confidentiality, we generally will not comment on Department actions with respect to specific cases,” a State Department spokesperson told JI on Tuesday.

Mahdawi’s lawyers filed a habeas corpus petition on Monday calling his detention unlawful. “This case concerns the government’s retaliatory and targeted detention and attempted removal of Mr. Mahdawi for his constitutionally protected speech,” the petition said.    

Representatives for Columbia declined to comment on Mahdawi’s arrest, citing federal student privacy law.

Like Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian green card holder and recent Columbia University graduate arrested by federal immigration agents last month, Mahdawi has not yet been charged with a crime. Instead, he appears to have been detained on a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act cited by Secretary of State Marco Rubio to justify expelling foreigners who are seen as a threat to U.S. foreign policy and national security, which the petition also challenges.

Last week, a federal judge in Louisiana ordered that Khalil can be deported, determining such arguments are sufficient grounds for his removal, in a decision that is expected to face further challenges.

A federal judge in Vermont ruled on Monday that Mahdawi must be held in the state and cannot be removed from the country for now. 

Mahdawi’s legal team did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.    

Mahdawi had been a key organizer of anti-Israel protests at Columbia that roiled the campus after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. He helped to found Columbia University Apartheid Divest and was a member of the university’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, which has expressed pro-Hamas rhetoric, among other student anti-Israel groups. 

For his part, Mahdawi, who moved to the U.S. from a refugee camp in the West Bank in 2014, called Hamas a “product of the Israeli occupation” shortly after the attacks and reportedly helped to write a statement released by Columbia student groups on Oct. 14, 2023, claiming 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.”

He also appeared at a rally a month after the attack alongside Nerdeen Kiswani of Within Our Lifetime, a radical group that advocates for armed resistance against Israel. 

In an interview on “60 Minutes” in December 2023, Mahdawi voiced sympathy for Hamas’ terror attacks.

“I did not say that I justify what Hamas has done. I said I can empathize,” he said. “To empathize is to understand the root cause and to not look at any event or situation in a vacuum. This is for me that path moving forward.”

On his Instagram page in August, meanwhile, Mahdawi posted photos commemorating what he called the “martyrdom” of his “cousin,” Maysara Masharqa, a field commander in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the armed wing of Fatah, describing him as a “fierce resistance fighter,” according to The Washington Free Beacon. 

“Here is Mesra who offers his soul as a sacrifice for the homeland and for the blood of the martyrs as a gift for the victory of Gaza and in defense of the dignity of his homeland and his people against the vicious Israeli occupation in the West Bank,” Mahdawi wrote.

While the petition filed by his legal team notes that he stepped back from such activism in March 2024, Mahdawi’s public statements drew intense scrutiny from several antisemitism watchdog groups that are pushing the Trump administration to target campus protest leaders.

Mahdawi, who was an undergraduate at Columbia University, was planning to pursue a master’s degree in the fall, according to the petition.

His arrest drew criticism on Monday from Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Peter Welch (D-VT) and Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT), who said in a statement that “he must be afforded due process under the law and immediately released from detention.”