President Trump at the Israel Museum. Jerusalem, May 23, 2017 with Netanyahu<\/p>\n
A far-right, pro-Israel group with a history of support for terror and genocide is working closely with the Trump administration, preparing dossiers on thousands of pro-Palestine figures it wants deported from the United States. Betar U.S. is known to have had several meetings with senior government officials and has claimed credit for the arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of the nationwide anti-genocide student\u00a0demonstrations<\/a>\u00a0that began at Columbia University last year.<\/p>\n Ross Glick, the group\u2019s executive director until last month,\u00a0noted<\/a>\u00a0that he met with a diverse set of influential lawmakers, including Democratic senator John Fetterman and aides to the Republican senators Ted Cruz and James Lankford, and that all supported Betar U.S.\u2019 campaign to rid the country of thousands of \u201cterror supporters.\u201d<\/p>\n Shortly after Glick\u2019s trip to Washington, D.C., Trump signed an\u00a0executive order<\/a>\u00a0titled \u201cAdditional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism\u201d that promises \u201cthe removal of resident aliens who violate our laws,\u201d to \u201cquell pro-Hamas vandalism and intimidation,\u201d and to \u201cinvestigate and punish anti-Jewish racism in leftist, anti-American colleges and universities.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump himself announced that Khalil\u2019s arrest, which made worldwide headlines, was \u201cthe first of many to come.\u201d \u201cWe know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump administration will not tolerate it,\u201d he\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0on Truth Social. The 45th and 47th president has also\u00a0stated<\/a>\u00a0that he plans to deport \u201cCommunists\u201d and \u201cMarxists\u201d from the United States, even those who are citizens. As such, this marks an escalation in government-backed suppression of dissent not seen since the McCarthyist era of the 1940s and 1950s.<\/p>\n Betar U.S.\u00a0describes<\/a>\u00a0itself as a \u201cloud, proud, aggressive and unapologetically Zionist\u201d movement \u201cdedicated to defending Israel\u2019s legitimacy and strengthening the Jewish connection to the land of Israel.\u201d This\u00a0includes<\/a>\u00a0\u201ctaking action where others won\u2019t\u201d \u2013 a rather ominous phrase, considering the aggressive activities of the Jewish organizations it derides as \u201cpassive\u201d and weak.<\/p>\n Last week, the group appeared to openly attempt to organize an assassination attempt on Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories. \u201cJoin us to give Francesca a [pager emoji] in London on Tuesday,\u201d it posted online, an apparent reference to the\u00a0September pager attack<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0 Lebanon carried out by the Israeli military. The incident killed dozens of people and injured thousands more civilians, and was widely condemned \u2013 even by former CIA Director\u00a0Leon Panetta<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 as an act of international terrorism.<\/p>\n Last month, Betar U.S. made a similar threat against Jewish-American writer Peter Beinart. After The New York Times published his article criticizing the State of Israel, it put out a\u00a0statement\u00a0<\/a>reading, \u201cWe urge all Jews on the Upper West Side to give Peter Beinart a [three pager emojis]. He is a traitor, a kapo, and we must oppose him.\u201d Thus, Betar not only smeared him as a Nazi collaborator (Kapo) and called for his assassination but also appeared to reveal Beinart\u2019s home location.<\/p>\n A similar incident occurred to political scientist Norman Finkelstein. In an effort to intimidate him into silence, a Betar member slipped a pager into his coat pocket,\u00a0filming<\/a>\u00a0the incident. After Finkelstein refused to stop speaking out against injustice in the Middle East, last weekend, the group\u00a0attempted<\/a>\u00a0to break up his public event in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n Perhaps most outrageously, Betar has also publicly placed a bounty on the head of Palestinian-American activist Nerdeen Kiswani,\u00a0telling<\/a>\u00a0her that \u201cYou hate America, you hate Jews, and we are here and won\u2019t be silent. $1,800 to anyone who hands that jihadi a beeper,\u201d and later repeating the offer. After worldwide pushback, the organization has deleted its posts calling for political killings of international officials and U.S. citizens.<\/p>\n Pretty wild how terrorists are allowed to just openly incite and incentivize acts of terrorism on this platform now. https:\/\/t.co\/D9aDpMY6yB<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/miBCoMdBKA<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) March 23, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\nCarrying Out Terror, Supporting Genocide<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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