New York State Attorney General Letitia James announced that her office has reached a settlement with the pro-Israel group Betar US over allegations of harassment of pro-Palestinian activists, resulting in the far-right Zionist group’s gradual closure of its operations in the state.
James said in a statement Tuesday that the investigation found the group carried out “widespread persecution” against Muslim, Arab, Palestinian and Jewish New Yorkers.
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“New York will not tolerate organizations that use fear, violence, and intimidation to silence free expression or target people for who they are,” James said.
“My office’s investigation uncovered an alarming and unlawful pattern of bias-based harassment and violence aimed at terrorizing communities and shutting down lawful protests.”
Betar US has gained a reputation among pro-Palestinian activists as a particularly aggressive example of a group that uses surveillance and harassment to suppress critics of Israel.
The far-right group has also gained attention on social media, delighting in attacking its enemies and often using language of revenge and revenge.
“Not enough is enough,” the group said in a now-deleted social media post in response to a list of Palestinian children killed in Gaza.
“We demand bloodshed in Gaza!”
A statement from James’ office said the group is seeking to dissolve the nonprofit corporation, “wind down” its operations in New York state and stop harassing individuals exercising their constitutional rights.
James said if the group violates the settlement, it will be forced to pay a suspended $50,000 fine.
Hours after the announcement, in response to a statement by New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani that the group had “sowed a campaign of hate across New York,” Betar linked to a website that called the city’s first Muslim mayor “Jihad Mamdani” and called him “an enemy of the West and Zionism.”
“The actions of pro-Israel groups have become too obvious and the government cannot turn a blind eye,” Raed Jalal, advocacy director of the pro-human rights group DAWN, told Al Jazeera by phone.
“The next thing we need to see is other states and federal authorities follow through on these actions.”
“Attacking dogs against those who speak out for Palestine”
Betar previously said he had turned over a list of pro-Palestinian students to the Trump administration for possible deportation, adding that he used facial recognition and “sophisticated databases” to create a list of students who participated in campus activism against Israeli genocide in Gaza.
A Department of Homeland Security official later testified that the information provided by the group, along with a list of the pro-Israel intelligence group Canary Mission, was used to target activists.
The Trump administration has arrested and detained numerous international students for their involvement in pro-Palestinian activities, and is asking them to be deported. Among them is Rumeisa Ozturk, a Turkish graduate student at Tufts University who was imprisoned for co-signing a paper calling on the university to divest from companies involved in violating Palestinian rights.
“They were one of various organizations that acted as attack dogs against those who spoke up for Palestine,” Yousef Munayer, a senior fellow at the Arab Center in Washington, D.C., told Al Jazeera, citing other organizations such as the Canary Mission and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
“They are distinguished by being very brash and belligerent. They have been willing to use the most extreme words, the most extreme actions, and have actively participated in direct confrontations on the streets,” he said.
Munayer drew similarities to earlier extremist groups, such as the Jewish Defense League (JDL), founded in New York City in the late 1960s by Jewish anti-Arab hardliner Meir Kahane.
The JDL was designated as a right-wing terrorist organization by the U.S. government in the early 2000s because it embraced violent street actions and continued to carry out numerous armed attacks against its opponents.
Betar also draws inspiration from Zionist hardliner Ze’ev Jabotinsky. Jabotinsky unapologetically called for a militant version of Zionism, advocating the violent expulsion of Palestinians from lands destined for a Jewish state.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu’s late father, Ben Zion, was Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s secretary for many years, and Netanyahu was one of Mr. Jabotinsky’s greatest students,” Betar said in a social media post on Tuesday. “He has denied all allegations of wrongdoing.”
“Betar is the mainstream of Zionism,” he added.
