I read in the Washington Free Beacon this morning that, in the wake of the pro-Hamas demonstrations, Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton is proposing to deport noncitizens who march in American streets on behalf of terrorists.
I thought this was a splendid idea. Initially I was cynical. It struck me as predictable that Republicans would use the protests as an opportunity to assert their solidarity with Israel purely to gain partisan clout in contrast with the humiliated anti-Israel progressive Democrats. However, because I like Tom Cotton, an Iraq veteran who’s as critical as I am of Biden’s deliberately weak support of Ukraine and appeasement of Iran, it made me receptive to what he had to say.
And after mulling it over, I think his proposal is reasonable and also intelligent. Revoking the visas of foreign nationals who broadcast their support for terror, at one and the same time: guards against our enemies using people as tools for disseminating propaganda on the homeland, and, it signals our support for our allies fighting tyranny abroad (i.e. Israel), bolstering our global reputation. As a matter of homeland security and foreign policy, it is commonsense.
So if you’re a foreign national studying at Yale or NYU, who thinks that by proclaiming your solidarity with the Palestinian “Resistance,” you’re just critiquing “structural oppression” and power imbalances? Well power doesn’t care! You don’t like “white privilege?” Well you just lost your privilege to study or work here.
You can take your Marxist hatred of power for power’s sake and your narcissism back to Pakistan or wherever the hell you come from. You can go be oppressed over there. Please take your copy of How to be an Antiracist—more like How to be an Antisemite—back home with you.
Go be an “antiZionist” somewhere else. America should not supply visas to virulent antisemites.
— Jay