Lost in the public outcry over targeting pro-Hamas protesters for visa revocation is the reality that the Biden administration did that in kind with Israelis without much scrutiny, according to George Mason University law professor Eugene Kontorovich.
Former President Joe Biden's restrictions on Israelis "was just using the visa system to punish one's political enemies," said Kontorovich, who called Biden's policy effectively a "Jew ban" in a published interview.
President Donald Trump's administration's targeting of pro-Hamas protest leaders like those at Columbia University is "far more restrained" than Biden's was, but the latter never received the same scrutiny or legal opposition, according to Kontorovich.
Trump's policy, backed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, is more of a "a valid judgment" of threats, Kontorovich added.
Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken's department issued a press release on Dec. 5, 2023 — just weeks after Hamas terrorists slaughtered an estimate 1,200 Jews on Oct. 7, 2023 — that read: "Today, the State Department is implementing a new visa restriction policy targeting individuals believed to have been involved in undermining peace, security, or stability in the West Bank, including through committing acts of violence or taking other actions that unduly restrict civilians' access to essential services and basic necessities. Immediate family members of such persons also may be subject to these restrictions."
Then, in February 2024, Biden issued an executive order that effectively allowed the administration to punish those opposed to giving Hamas terrorists their own state in Gaza, according to Kontorovich.
"The executive order of Biden says we can ban people who disagree with our notion, even if they don't encourage or participate in violent activities, whereas there is nothing in U.S. law that says the two-state solution is the be-all and end-all," Kontorovich said.
"Half the congressmen in Congress probably don't support the two-state solution, whereas Hamas is a designated foreign terror. Opposing the two-state solution, not a designated terror organization," he said.
"Hamas kidnaps and rapes people, murders people. Opponents of the two-state solution don't do that."
Unlike Biden's policy, Trump's anti-terrorist-supporter policy is justified, according to Kontorovich.
"It's not like they just went out and designated some group they didn't like," Kontorovich said. "It's not like designing BLM [Black Lives Matter] a terror organization."
Hamas is a designated terror organization. Biden's visas restrictions on Israeli Jews was banning an ally's citizens on allegations, Kontorovich concluded.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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