Zionist Organization Naming Names in Light of Trump’s Executive Order Targeting Terror Sympathizers in America on Visas
Betar, which describes itself as a ‘loud and proud’ pro-Israel group, sends Trump Administration a list of pro-terror students and faculty.
In light of President Trump’s executive order that paves the way for officials to revoke the visas of international students and faculty members who support foreign terrorist organizations, one Zionist advocacy group is working closely with the new administration to make sure the order gets put to use.
Betar U.S., an American Zionist organization that traces its origins to Russian author and Zionist leader, Vladimir Jabotinsky, has been compiling a list of names of pro-terror actors on college campuses, along with evidence of their infractions, for months. Now that Mr. Trump signed an executive order that calls for the deportation of foreigners, including students, who express support for designated terrorist groups, the organization is pouncing at the opportunity to hand the administration a list of names on a silver platter.
“The executive order is just 25 percent of the equation. The other 75 percent is oversight,” Betar’s director of projects, Sloan Rachmuth, tells The New York Sun. The group, living up to its motto of being “loud and proud Zionists” who “fight back” sent the Trump administration, including officials in the Department of Homeland Security, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, and the Department of Justice, a list of 120 visa-holding students and faculty members who they have documented supporting terrorist groups.
Meanwhile, Betar is working with government officials who have expressed interest in championing the issue to make sure that their dossier is taken seriously. Such figures include Arkansas Senator, Tom Cotton, New York Representative, Ritchie Torres, and former chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, Virginia Foxx, Ms. Rachmuth tells the Sun.
The group, however, is careful to distinguish between acts or speech that are pro-terror versus antisemitic. “When I hear statements like ‘globalize the intifada’ or ‘we are Hamas,’ — which have been chanted on the steps on UNC — that crosses into material support for terror,” Ms. Rachmuth notes. “They’re doing the bidding for the Muslim Brotherhood.”
On the other hand, if students are participating in a protest calling for Hillel to be removed, “I don’t think that is support for terror. That’s just antisemitic,” Ms. Rachmuth tells the Sun. The group has people on the ground in 50 cities across the country and all of the evidence, she notes, is “verified on video.”
Universities with a significant number of offending students and faculty? The University of North Carolina and Duke University, Ms. Rachmuth says, noting that they hold high percentages of students on F1 visas and are “feeder schools” for the State Department. The group has also compiled evidence of students and faculty at the University of Michigan, New York University, Cooper Union, and dozens of others.
The executive order, which was signed by Mr. Trump during his first week in office, is titled “Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats.” The document notes that “The United States must ensure that admitted aliens and aliens otherwise already present in the United States do not bear hostile attitudes toward its citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles, and do not advocate for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists and other threats to our national security.”
Betar, though, appears to be the only advocacy group taking the executive order as a call to action. “Other groups find it unseemly that we are focusing on getting people who are abusive the hell out of here,” Ms. Rachmuth tells the Sun. “But behind the scenes, I’ve gotten hundreds and hundreds of ‘attaboys.’ I feel like a rockstar.”
https://www.nysun.com/article/zionist-organization-naming-names-in-light-of-trumps-executive-order-targeting-terror-sympathizers-with-visas
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