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The National
31-03-2025
- Politics
- The National
Pro-Israel groups give Trump administration names of pro-Palestinian student protesters
Live updates: Follow the latest on Israel-Gaza In the latest chapter of America's campus culture wars, a cadre of far-right pro-Israel organisations have thrown their support behind President Donald Trump's vow to deport students who protested against Israel's war on Gaza and demanded that US universities divest from companies linked to Israel. At the forefront are Canary Mission and Betar US, two of the most prominent groups that are working closely with the Trump administration by identifying and reporting student protesters. 'We provided hundreds of names to the Trump administration of visa holders and naturalised Middle Easterners and foreigners who have no free speech in their countries [then] come to the West to rage against America and support US-designated terrorist organisations,' Betar spokesman Daniel Levy told The National via email. Betar, a Zionist activist group, calls the pro-Palestinian protesters 'jihadis'. Once on their blacklist, it is almost impossible to get off. Mr Levy also stated that his group has reason to believe that Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian studying philosophy at Columbia University in New York City, and the award-winning Palestinian poet and author Mosab Abu Toha will shortly be detained and deported. Mr Abu Toha, who is in the US on a visa from Syracuse University, said on Friday that he has cancelled all his US speaking events because he 'felt unsafe travelling, especially after watching students and university professors abducted on the street just in front of other people'. Tufts graduate Rumeysa Ozturk was also on Betar's list. She was arrested last week, a year after she co-authored a pro-Palestinian op-ed in a student newspaper and was flagged for anti-Israel activism. US Representative Dan Goldman, a Democrat and lawyer who served as lead counsel in the first impeachment of Mr Trump, posted on X that Ms Ozturk was 'arrested by six masked officers – like the Gestapo'. 'Her only offence appears to be writing an op-ed in her school newspaper. While I strongly disagree with the views expressed in her op-ed, they are not a valid basis for deportation. This is flat out un-American,' he said. Before his arrest on March 7, Palestinian student Mahmoud Khalil had emailed Katrina Armstrong, the former interim president of Columbia University, urging her to shield international students from deportation threats he attributed to Betar. Mr Levy expressed gratitude towards Mr Trump and advocated for 'many more deportations,' stating that his organisation's perspectives align with mainstream Zionism and represent the views of the majority of the Zionist and Israeli public. Betar US is part of Betar, a Zionist youth movement established in 1923 by Ze'ev Jabotinsky, who advocated for robust Jewish militarism and territorial expansion. Betar is not the only supporter of Mr Trump's deportation campaign. Before Mr Khalil's arrest, Canary Mission – an online database launched in 2014 that lists individuals and groups it claims foster hatred towards the US and Israel – became the first ones to share a video of him and others participating in a sit-in at Barnard College in New York. Canary Mission states on its website that each person and organisation is thoroughly researched and cited. The group publicises names, photos, social media profiles, and other personal details of individuals with whom it disagrees, asserting that its goal is to prevent 'today's radicals from becoming tomorrow's employees'. A college instructor, who requested anonymity due to fear of retaliation, told The National that these far-right pro-Israel groups have 'gained new importance and new influence under the Trump administration, which is basically just using them to do their hit lists and to compile more lists of people to be deported. 'They also target Jews, like anti-Zionist Jews,' the instructor said. 'It's been a while since I looked at it, but many friends of mine have been 'Canary missioned', as they as they refer to it, and quite a few of them are Jewish'.
Washington Post
31-03-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
A militant Zionist group threatens activists online with a ‘deport list'
Almost six weeks before federal immigration officials detained Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a group called Betar US said on its X account that it had put the pro-Palestinian activist on 'our deport list.' 'It's 10 p.m. and ICE is aware of his home address and whereabouts,' the group posted on Jan. 29 under a video of CNN interviewing Khalil at a campus protest, referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 'We have provided all his information to multiple contacts.' Khalil, a green-card holder married to a U.S. citizen, was detained on March 8. Three days later, Betar shared with The Washington Post a list of potential next targets it said it had recently flagged to Trump administration officials. At the top was Momodou Taal, a Cornell University graduate student who was suspended twice last year for his role in pro-Palestinian protests there. Now Taal, too, is fighting to stay in the country. Betar US, the newly revived and rapidly growing U.S. chapter of a century-old militant Zionist group, is claiming a share of the credit and moving on to the next names on its list. The Post couldn't determine whether the group played a role in the Trump administration's decision to target Khalil and Taal for deportation. In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said ICE 'is not working with or received any tips through the ICE Tip Line from the group identified as Betar.' But the Zionist group claims the government is listening, and so do attorneys for Khalil and Taal, whose student visa has been revoked: Both cited Betar in their respective lawsuits alleging that their clients are being targeted as part of an illegal crackdown on pro-Palestinian speech. 'We provided hundreds of names to the Trump administration of visa holders and naturalized Middle Easterners and foreigners,' said Daniel Levy, a spokesman for Betar. 'These jihadis who oppose America and Israel have no place in our great country.' Last fall, Betar was banned from Meta's platforms after it made veiled death threats to pro-Palestinian lawmakers and college students. Now the group's social media presence is unrestrained as it aligns itself with the Trump administration's enforcement of executive orders calling for the expulsion of foreign nationals who engage in antisemitism or support terrorism. Betar's rising profile shows how Trump's policies and rhetoric have emboldened a new crop of uncompromising Zionist groups that use social media to target individuals they view as antisemitic or sympathetic to Hamas — including some Jews. In November, a stranger approached Taal in person at a protest in New York and handed him an electronic pager — a nod to Israel's exploding-pager attack in September that killed or maimed scores of suspected Hezbollah members. Handing pagers to pro-Palestinian activists, and calling on X for its supporters to do the same, has become Betar's signature tactic. Its targets consider it a death threat; the group says it's just an edgy joke. On March 13, Betar published on X what it called a 'deport alert' for Taal, noting his Cornell affiliation and visa status and quoting from his past X posts that the group said show his support for Hamas, which the United States has deemed a terrorist organization. The group quoted Taal as saying 'glory to the resistance' after Hamas's Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 people. Responding to a question about whether he supported the group, Taal told The Post: 'It is absurd to say that attending protests against the genocide makes someone a member of Hamas. I categorically reject this effort to conflate free speech with terrorism.' Taal and two others filed a lawsuit in federal court in New York on March 15 asking a judge to block the Trump administration from enforcing its executive orders against Taal and others in similar situations. The suit attributed his 'growing fear that he will be the target of an ICE removal operation' to 'a pattern of escalating attention' from Betar and other Zionist groups 'with the power to influence immigration enforcement decisions.' The fear turned out to be well-founded. On March 19, officials from the Department of Homeland Security visited Taal's residence in Ithaca, New York. Two days later, his attorneys received an email from Justice Department attorneys inviting Taal to surrender to ICE custody. A judge heard Taal's request for an injunction and temporary restraining order Tuesday and could rule at any time. Both Taal and Khalil had high-profile run-ins with authorities at their respective campuses before Betar began campaigning for their removal, and there's no direct evidence that Betar influenced the government's decision to pursue either of them. Nor is Betar the only pro-Israel actor claiming credit for helping the administration identify alleged Hamas sympathizers. The day after Khalil was detained, a group called Shirion Collective posted a memorandum on X that it had sent to DHS on Jan. 27, laying out the 'legal basis' for the Syrian-born Algerian's 'immediate detention and removal.' Shirion didn't respond to a request for comment. Another X account, called Documenting Jew Hatred on Campus at Columbia U, had posted about Khalil the day before his arrest, calling on Secretary of State Marco Rubio to revoke his visa, not realizing that he was in the U.S. on a green card. And after the government's detention last week of Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown University fellow from India, the conservative think tank Middle East Forum linked his arrest to a February article in which it reported on Suri's ties to a Hamas official. Following ICE's request for Taal to turn himself in, Betar spokesman Levy told The Post that the group has 'more and more reason to believe' that others on its list would soon be detained and deported as well. 'We want to say Shalom to many more Mahmouds and many more Momodous,' Levy said. Betar was founded as a paramilitary Zionist youth movement in Latvia in 1923 by Ze'ev Jabotinsky, who believed a Jewish state in British-held Palestine could only be established by force. Among its alumni were conservative Israeli Prime Ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, and the group still boasts strong ties to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling Likud Party. Though Betar faded from political relevance once Israel was established, 'the movement's historical image is one of aggressive right-wing nationalist and militant activism,' said Guy Fiennes, a researcher at the nonprofit Institute for Strategic Dialogue. The revival of its U.S.-based chapter came only after Hamas's Oct. 7 attack on Israel, said Ross Glick, who joined the resurgent group last year as its executive director, a role from which he stepped down in January. Glick, an entrepreneur and marketing consultant in New York City, said he was 'devastated' by the attack. When he saw pro-Palestinian demonstrators celebrating it on the streets of New York, 'a switch flipped' and he became enraged. He began trying to document the demonstrators' identities for potential investigation by law enforcement. He linked up in 2024 with Ronn Torossian, a politically connected public relations executive with a colorful past who shared Glick's penchant for confronting activists. Torossian was working to resurrect Betar in the U.S. as a hard-line Zionist movement. Before a visit to the University of Pittsburgh last fall, Glick announced on Instagram his plan to hand out pagers to members of the activist group Students for Justice in Palestine. That group reported Glick's post to law enforcement as a bomb threat, and Instagram's parent company, Meta, banned him and Betar from its platforms. Undeterred, Betar refocused its social media efforts on X, which has generally dialed back content moderation while taking a more restrictive line against anti-Israeli slogans. There, on its verified account, it has challenged numerous pro-Palestinian activists, often exhorting its followers to 'hand them a pager.' In January, Betar posted on X that it aimed to raise $1,800 to hand a pager to a prominent Palestinian activist Nerdeen Kiswani. The post linked to a GoFundMe page for the group, where it said it was a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. That irked Jenin Younes, a D.C.-based First Amendment lawyer whose father is Palestinian and who considers herself a supporter of the Palestinian cause, though not of Hamas. Younes is no advocate of online censorship: She represented some of the conservative plaintiffs in a 2023 Supreme Court case that accused the Biden administration of pressuring social media platforms to censor conservative speech that it deemed misinformation. But she drew the line at what she considered to be a threat on Kiswani's life. Younes responded to Kiswani's post on X and said it was criminal conduct that neither X nor GoFundMe should allow. Betar quickly turned the tables, suggesting that its supporters give her a pager, too. Younes said she reported the posts to X but received no response. Within hours, she said, she began receiving dozens of calls a day from an unknown number. On at least one occasion when she picked up, the caller began cursing and telling her to go back to her 'Islamic s---hole.' 'I think when a group like this is making open death threats or threats of violence and nobody's doing anything about it, that emboldens them,' Younes said. X didn't respond to a request for comment. GoFundMe said Betar's efforts had been reviewed and found 'in compliance with our terms of service.' In February, Al Jazeera journalist Laila al-Arian posted what she said was a list of names of 'Palestinian babies Israel killed before they reached their first birthday.' Betar responded, 'Not enough. We demand blood in Gaza!' The post was removed, but Betar has since reposted screenshots of it. Betar has also gone after Jewish people who criticize Israel, such as the liberal commentator and City University of New York journalism professor Peter Beinart. In February, Betar told its X followers that if they see Beinart on New York's Upper West Side, they should give him a pager. 'Oppose my ideas all you want,' Beinart responded on X. 'But when you urge people in my neighborhood to give me a pager — in the wake of Israel's pager attack in Lebanon — that sounds like a death threat.' In a phone interview, Beinart said: 'It's probably not coincidental that in a moment of enormous political thuggishness, in which Donald Trump sets the tone, there are a lot more people and groups that might be inclined to speak in that tone.' In February, the Jewish civil rights group Anti-Defamation League added Betar to its glossary of extremism and hate, reporting that the group 'openly embraces Islamophobia and harasses Muslims online and in person.' Betar is the only Jewish group on the list. Glick said he has met with both administration officials and lawmakers who welcome his input, including Republican Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas) and James Lankford (Oklahoma) and Democratic Sen. John Fetterman (Pennsylvania). He has posted selfies and a video of himself interacting with Fetterman in a Capitol hallway in November, with Fetterman saying 'I love it' when Glick described the 'pager stunt.' Neither Cruz nor Lankford returned requests for comment on their relationship with Betar. A spokesperson for Fetterman said the senator 'strenuously denies any involvement whatsoever' and has never interacted with Glick or Betar beyond a single, incidental hallway run-in. Glick stepped down as executive director of Betar in January after critics of the group resurfaced a scandal from his past, and Levy said Glick no longer speaks for Betar. Torossian declined to comment for this story. Since the run-in with SJP in Pittsburgh, the tables have turned in Betar's favor. Meta has reinstated Betar to its platforms, and earlier this month the University of Pittsburgh temporarily suspended SJP from its campus. On Thursday, Betar posted on X a video of ICE officers arresting Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University doctoral student from Turkey. 'She was on our list,' the group said, adding that it plans to send ICE a new list Monday of 'approximately 1800 more jihadis.' Abed Ayoub, national executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, who is one of the attorneys representing Taal, said the degree to which Betar sets or merely aligns with the Trump administration's agenda is immaterial. 'They're still chilling speech, they're still intimidating, they're still creating a climate of fear,' he said, adding: 'It's ironic that a Jewish organization is putting together lists.'
The Guardian
14-03-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Pro-Israel group says it has ‘deportation list' and has sent ‘thousands' of names to Trump officials
A far-right group that claimed credit for the arrest of a Palestinian activist and permanent US resident who the Trump administration is seeking to deport claims it has submitted 'thousands of names' for similar treatment. Betar US is one of a number of rightwing, pro-Israel groups that are supporting the administration's efforts to deport international students involved in university pro-Palestinian protests, an effort that escalated this week with the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, an activist who recently completed his graduate studies at Columbia University. This week, Donald Trump said Khalil's arrest was just 'the first of many to come'. Betar US quickly took to social media to claim credit for providing Khalil's name to the government. Betar, which has been labelled an extremist group by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a Jewish advocacy group, said on Monday that it had 'been working on deportations and will continue to do so', and warned that the effort would extend beyond immigrants. 'Expect naturalized citizens to start being picked up within the month,' the group's post on X read. (It is very difficult to revoke US citizenship, though Trump has indicated an intention to try.) The group has compiled a so-called 'deportation list' naming individuals it believes are in the US on visas and have participated in pro-Palestinian protests, claiming these individuals 'terrorize America'. A Betar spokesperson, Daniel Levy, said in a statement to the Guardian that Betar submitted 'thousands of names' of students and faculty they believe to be on visas from institutions like Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, UCLA, Syracuse University and others to representatives of the Trump administration. The group claims to have 'documentation, including tapes, social media and more' to support their actions. It claims to be sharing names with several high-ranking officials, including the secretary of state, Marco Rubio; the White House homeland security adviser, Stephen Miller; and the attorney general, Pam Bondi, among others. The White House and state department did not respond to questions about whether they are working with Betar or other groups to identify students for deportation. Ross Glick, who was the executive director of the US chapter of Betar until last month, told the Guardian that the list began forming last fall. He noted that when they started compiling names, it was unclear who the next president would be, but that the change in administrations had been beneficial to their initiative. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly vowed to deport foreign students involved in pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses and frequently framed demonstrations against Israel's actions in Gaza as expressions of support for Hamas. Last week, it was reported that the US state department plans to use AI to identify foreign students for deportation. The arrest of Khalil last week, who served as a lead negotiator for the Gaza solidarity encampment at Columbia University, aligned with Trump's executive order aimed at combatting antisemitism. An accompanying fact sheet pledged the administration would cancel the student visas of those identified as 'Hamas sympathizers' and deport those who participated in 'pro-jihadist protests'. After the election, Glick said he met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill, including the Democratic senator John Fetterman and aides to Republican senators Ted Cruz and James Lankford, all of whom, he said, supported the efforts. In a phone call this week, Glick said he discussed Khalil with Cruz in Washington DC just days before he was arrested. Cruz's office did not respond to a request for comment on the meeting with Glick. Glick said that the individuals on Betar's list were identified through tips from students, faculty and staff on these campuses, along with social media research. He also claimed he had received support from 'collaborators' who use 'facial recognition AI based technology' to help identify protesters that can even identify people wearing face coverings. He declined to elaborate on the specific technology used. Glick mentioned that in recent months he had been inundated with messages from students, professors and university administrators across the country, all reaching out to provide him with information on protesters' identities. He said that he vetted the legitimacy of those tips and that he believed Khalil and other pro-Palestinian protesters were 'promoting the eradication, the destruction and the devolution of western civilization'. Glick described Khalil as an 'operative'. When asked who he was an operative for, he responded: 'Well, that has to be determined.' Khalil is being held in a Louisiana detention center after being moved from New York. His detention is being challenged in a Manhattan federal court. The arrest has sparked outrage and alarm from free-speech advocates who see the move to deport Khalil as a flagrant violation of his free speech rights and on Wednesday, protests erupted outside the Manhattan courthouse, where hundreds gathered demanding his freedom. Betar is not alone in its efforts to support Trump's deportation campaign, an effort that has divided American Jews in whose name the administration is purporting to act. In the days leading up to his arrest, videos featuring Khalil and others at a sit-in at Barnard against the expulsion of two students who disrupted a class on Israel began circulating on social media. Pro-Israel social-media accounts, including that of Shai Davidai, a vocal assistant professor at Columbia's business school who was temporarily barred from campus last year after the school said he repeatedly intimated and harassed university employees, identified Khalil and tagged Rubio in posts urging him to to revoke his visa and deport him. The video of Khalil that was circulating was first posted by Canary Mission, an online database that publishes the names and personal information of people that it considers to be anti-Israel or antisemitic, focusing mainly on those at universities across the US. When Khalil was arrested, Canary Mission said that it was 'delighted that our exposure of Mahmoud Khalil's hatred has led to such deserved consequences', adding that it had 'more Columbia news on its way'. On Monday afternoon, Canary Mission released a video naming five other students and faculty it believes should be deported. It was revealed this week by Zeteo that Khalil had emailed Columbia University the day before his arrest, appealing for protection and telling the university's interim president that he was being subjected to a 'dehumanizing doxxing campaign' that week led by Davidai and David Lederer, a Columbia student. 'Their attacks have incited a wave of hate, including calls for my deportation and death threats,' Khalil said. He added: 'I haven't been able to sleep, fearing that Ice or a dangerous individual might come to my home. I urgently need legal support, and I urge you to intervene and provide the necessary protections to prevent further harm.' In another email, Khalil reportedly cited a threatening post by Betar, in which the group claimed he said: 'Zionists don't deserve to live.' Khalil 'unequivocally' denied ever saying that. In that post, Betar wrote that Ice was 'aware of his home address and whereabouts' and said it had 'provided all his information to multiple contacts'. After the arrest, Karoline Leavitt, the spokesperson for the White House, said that Columbia University had been given the 'names of other individuals who have engaged in pro-Hamas activity' but said that the school was 'refusing to help DHS identify those individuals on campus'. Khalil's arrest has divided American Jews, many of whom have harshly condemned the activist's arrest. The ADL, a group that describes its focus as fighting antisemitism and all forms of hate and that is also known to view campus protests as antisemitic, welcomed the escalation and said it appreciated 'the Trump administration's broad, bold set of efforts to counter campus antisemitism. 'Obviously, any deportation action or revocation of a Green Card or visa must be undertaken in alignment with required due process protections,' the group said. It added: 'We also hope that this action serves as a deterrent to others who might consider breaking the law on college campuses or anywhere.' But many mainstream, progressive and leftwing Jewish groups have condemned the administration's actions as a dangerous violation of free speech. 'It is both possible and necessary to directly confront and address the crisis of antisemitism, on campus and across our communities, without abandoning the fundamental democratic values that have allowed Jews, and so many others, to thrive here,' said Amy Spitalnick, head of the liberal Jewish Council for Public Affairs. In a letter on Thursday to the US Department of Homeland Security, several groups including the New York Jewish Agenda, Aleph: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, Habonim Dror North America and others, said that they were 'deeply disturbed by the circumstances surrounding the apprehension and detention of Mahmoud Khalil'. 'Irrespective of the content of Mr Khalil's speech, we firmly believe that his arrest does nothing to make Jews safer,' the groups said. 'In the past, laws and policies that limit the right to free speech have often been wielded against the Jewish community, and we are worried that we are seeing signs that they are being wielded against Muslim, Arab, and other minority communities now.' David Myers, a distinguished professor and the Sady and Ludwig Kahn chair in Jewish history at the University of California Los Angeles, told the Guardian he believed the Trump administration was instrumentalizing and weaponizing 'antisemitism for political gain'. 'I think ultimately, [the administration] is interested in something larger than defending Jewish students, it's really interested in bringing the university to its knees as a way of removing a key liberal, progressive actor from the American political game,' he said. Myers described Betar's decision to compile a list of people to be deported as 'horrifying' but 'not a total surprise', he said, given what Betar has historically represented, which he called an 'embrace of Jewish fascism'. 'I find it distasteful, un-Jewish and collaborationist to forge together lists of people who fail to meet a political litmus test,' Myers said. He believes universities should resist pressure from the government and uphold the principles of fairness and democracy. 'It's a moment of reckoning about where one's values really lie,' he said. 'If universities submit, that's removing an extraordinarily important site of free and open thinking from the American political conversation. I think that would be very ominous for this country, a further step in the move towards a fully authoritarian regime.'
