The Price of Criticizing Israel Has Never Been Higher

Supporting Palestine can get you kidnapped, jailed, or brutally beaten right now.

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It’s been a ghastly week for anyone who dares to criticize Israel.

On Wednesday, video emerged of Runeysa Ozturk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University, being kidnapped in broad daylight by masked, plainclothes feds. (Let the irony not be lost: This comes after Columbia University agreed to the Trump administration’s demands, which included banning protesters on campus from wearing masks.) In the video, Ozturk starts screaming as they close in on her—she must’ve thought she was being mugged, or worse. You can see the officers immediately pry her phone out of her hands before whisking her away in handcuffs.

A statement from the Department of Homeland Security said Ozturk “engaged in activities in support of Hamas,” which seems to amount to her co-authoring an op-ed in the student paper that, according to The Washington Post, advocated for “hold[ing] Israel accountable for clear violations of international law.” (The horror.)

We’re seeing the playbook emerge. As with Mahmoud Khalil, Ozturk was quickly transported out of the state to a detention center in Louisiana. Save for having the temerity to criticize Israel, her lawyer says she has not been accused of any crime.

That certainly wasn’t the only chilling thing that happened this week.