By Ivan Kesic
Over the past 18 months—since the launch of the genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip—Betar US has come under increased media scrutiny for its aggressive tactics against pro-Palestinian protesters, both on the streets and across social media platforms.
Its recent activities—including hate speech, doxxing, bounties, and vigilante threats—have drawn condemnation from pro-Palestinian groups and even mainstream Jewish organizations, fueling calls for American authorities to ban the group.
Little has been written, however, about the past of Ronn Torossian, the current leader of Betar US, who reestablished the group as a reincarnation of the banned Kahanist movement and who maintains long-standing ties to Israel’s Likud party and the incumbent American president.
Zionist terrorist movement
Betar US is a branch of the Betar movement, a terrorist organization inspired by European fascism and based on the most radical and fascist ideas of Zionism.
It was founded in 1923 in Riga, Latvia, by Vladimir (Ze’ev) Jabotinsky, a key figure in Revisionist Zionism, who aimed to establish a so-called “Jewish state” on both banks of the Jordan River and promoted the ideas of militarism, immigration to the occupied Palestine, and maximal territorial expansion without any regard for indigenous Palestinians.
The movement was named after its inspirer, the early Zionist settler Brit Yosef Trumpeldor (Joseph Trumpeldor), who died in 1920 fighting local Arab resistance forces in northern Palestine.
Besides being an acronym for Trumpeldor, Betar is also the name of the last Jewish fortress that fell to the Romans during a revolt in the 2nd century.
Within ten years of its founding, Betar had 70,000 members, with 40,000 in Poland, where it was most successful due to Europe's largest Jewish population.
Its activities included military drilling and facilitating the illegal immigration of tens of thousands of European Jews to Palestine, defying British quotas.
In Palestine, Betar members joined the Irgun, a Zionist terrorist group, engaging in guerrilla tactics of sabotage and assassination against British forces and terrorist attacks on Arab civilians.
After the Nakba of 1948 and the realization of the Zionist plan, Betar's role gradually declined, and its membership decreased from a peak of 90,000 to less than 10,000 by the 1960s.
Betar, however, produced prominent Israeli right-wingers, including Prime Ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, War Minister Moshe Arens, Minister Tzipi Livni, and current UN Ambassador Danny Danon.
Benzion Netanyahu, father of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was Jabotinsky's aide. Betar's militaristic, right-wing ideology shaped the Israeli Likud party and other far-right movements in the Zionist entity, which helped in consolidating occupation and apartheid.
"The Betar movement, led by Vladimir Ze'ev Jabotinsky, changed Zionism and therefore changed the history of the Jewish people. We continue and I continue to put forth its basic principles and convictions," Netanyahu, who heads the Likud party, was once quoted as saying.
Betar members also included Meir Kahane, a notorious American-Israeli rabbi, founder of the terrorist group Jewish Defense League (JDL) and the Israeli political party Kach, convicted of multiple terrorist acts on the soil of the United States.
He is the ideologue of the eponymous Kahanism, a chauvinist movement that advocates the total segregation of Jews and non-Jews in occupied Palestine, with the latter's subordinate status offering the choice of slavery or deportation.
Modern Betar and its branches have embraced many of the ideas, methods, and slogans of Kahane, Kahanism, and the JDL, including "slavery or deportation" blackmail for pro-Palestinian American students.
Contemporary Betar US revival
Although originally founded in 1929, Betar US remained relatively inactive for several decades until June 2023, when it was rebooted by Ronn Torossian, an Israeli-American public relations executive and terror cheerleader.
Torossian had been a member of Betar US since his teenage years, served as its president during his student days, and after graduating, moved briefly to the occupied Palestinian territories, where he collaborated with Likud and neo-Zionist settler terrorist organizations.
He says that he was inspired by Ze'ev Jabotinsky's teachings, and in his youth, he was a staunch supporter of Meir Kahane, a connection he has unsuccessfully tried to conceal in recent years.
Torossian was identified in a 1994 video from a New York synagogue as the campus coordinator of Kahane Chai (Kach party), leading a memorial service for Rabbi Meir Kahane and calling him "the greatest Jewish leader ever."
At this gathering, support was also shouted for Ami Popper and Baruch Goldstein, Kahanist terrorists known for the mass murder of a total of 36 Palestinian civilians.
Upon returning to his native New York, Torossian worked for public relations companies and became notorious for his aggressive style, occasionally leading pro-Zionist protests.
He became close to Morton Klein, the long-time president of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), with whom he shares anti-Arab and anti-Islamic views, and he also collaborated with Pamela Geller in promoting Islamophobia in the US.
He is also proven to have long-standing personal, business, and political ties to US President Donald Trump, to whose presidential campaign he donated generously.
American-Israeli journalist Jeffrey Goldberg described Torossian's ideas as "Nazi," recalling that he once told him that he believed "a thousand Arabs should be killed for every Jew killed."
Reflecting on his PR work, journalist Hamilton Nolan critically described his personality as "loud, brash, more flash than substance, dirty, manipulative, amoral and, in the end, not particularly bright."
Rebranded Kahanism
Until the summer of 2023, Betar US had dedicated itself to Zionist agitation and inciting young American Jews to emigrate to the Zionist entity. Since the revival led by Torossian, it has become engaged in aggressive forms of harassment.
Torossian told the media that his group "stands for tough, strong, proud Zionism" and claimed to "combat anti-Semitism" because its members believe they live in "the days before a potential Holocaust."
Betar US claims to currently have thousands of members across more than 50 cities, motivated by pro-Palestinian protests against the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza ongoing since October 2023, which has killed nearly 52,000 Palestinians, mostly children and women.
Torossian also said that, unlike other Zionist organizations, they do not intend to engage in "writing statements or lawsuits" but in active struggle, echoing the views of Jabotinsky, who called for a militant approach in achieving his goals.
Over the last two years, Betar US has gathered a mob of pro-Israel terrorist agitators who respond to pro-Palestinian protesters with a mix of online trolling, counter-demonstrations, and direct physical threats.
For months, the group has claimed that it has been collecting data on pro-Palestinian students and protesters, intending to submit them to the Trump administration for deportation.
Intriguingly, in full compliance with this practice, Torossian's friend US President Donald Trump signed an executive order at the end of January to deport foreign-born protesters who are deemed to have supported "terrorist groups" or the Palestinian resistance movement.
This single-mindedness, according to legal experts, is a blatant violation of the First Amendment to the US Constitution and is undoubtedly inspired by Kahane's ideas about choosing between accepting Zionist supremacism or deportation.
Numerous other examples also prove that Betar US is actually a rebranded Kahanist movement, since the Kach party and its offshoot, the JDL, were previously banned as terrorist organizations in the United States.
These include open Jewish supremacism, notorious anti-Arab racism, anti-Muslim religious bigotry, waving JDL flags at rallies, and documented open expressions of support for Kahane by members of the group.
It uses the militarist Kahanist slogan, "For every Jew, a .22," invented by Kahane himself, meaning Jews should be armed with .22 rifles.
Betar US openly supports the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homeland, as well as the monstrous child-killing practice of the Israeli army in Gaza.
After journalist Laila Al-Arian expressed horror at the number of Palestinian babies killed in Gaza, Betar US on the X platform responded with the words "not enough" and "we demand blood in Gaza."
The aforementioned Kahanist movements are banned as terrorist groups even in the Zionist entity due to the repeated massacres of civilians, mostly settlers from the United States.
While the Israeli regime unsuccessfully denies responsibility for these crimes, the Kahanists are known as the only Zionist group that openly advocates and glorifies such crimes.
At the 1994 commemoration hosted by Torossian, his colleagues openly glorified terrorist mass murderers Popper and Goldstein, declaring that they had "had the courage to do what everyone gathered wanted."
The once fringe group, banned as terrorists in the US and the Zionist entity, has entered the political mainstream thanks to Kahane's faithful follower, Itamar Ben-Gvir, as well as Torossian and his personal ties to Netanyahu and Trump.
Violation of US federal laws
In addition to representing the reincarnation of a banned terrorist organization, Betar US's activities, legal luminaries argue, potentially violate several American federal laws.
Their hate-driven and deeply controversial activities include doxxing pro-Palestinian students, offering bounties, making deportation threats against foreigners in the US, and engaging in confrontational and violent protests, all violate both American and international law.
Among the likely violated federal laws is the Interstate Communications Act (18 U.S.C. § 875), which criminalizes transmitting threats across state lines (including via the internet) to injure a person, with penalties of up to seven years in prison if intent to harm is proven.
Betar's X posts offering bounties—such as $1,800 to hand "beepers" to Palestinian-American activist Nerdeen Kiswani—referencing Israeli 2024 Lebanon terrorist attacks, and doxxing students like Columbia's Mahmoud Khalil with calls for ICE deportation, could be interpreted as threatening.
The "beeper" bounty, implying a terrorist act, and the public shaming of individuals as "terror supporters" are designed to intimidate and target pro-Palestinian students.
These actions violate § 875 since Betar US intends to cause physical harm or serious injury to the individuals it threatens, and any reasonable person would perceive the statements as threatening.
Another federal law violated is the Cyberstalking Statute (18 U.S.C. § 2261A), which can result in up to five years in prison for those found involved.
This law prohibits using electronic communications, such as social media, to harass, intimidate, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, with the intent to place them in reasonable fear of death or serious injury, something Betar cyber terrorists have mastered.
Betar’s doxxing and posting of students' names, photos, and visa statuses online, as well as labeling them "terror supporters" for ICE action, also constitutes a pattern of harassment.
For example, their campaign against Mahmoud Khalil at Columbia involved compiling and sharing personal information to pressure immigration authorities to deport him.
If Betar's actions were intended to cause emotional distress or fear—such as fear of deportation or public shaming—they could violate § 2261A, especially if the conduct was repeated and targeted.
Human rights organizations cite Betar’s Islamophobic slurs and doxxing as intimidating, supporting this argument and strengthening the evidence for a lawsuit against the Zionist terror outfit.
The third certainly violated federal law is the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VI (42 USC § 2000d), which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in programs receiving federal funding, such as universities.
It applies to actions creating a hostile educational environment, and Betar's targeting of pro-Palestinian students, many of whom are Arab, Muslim, or of West Asian descent, at universities like the University of California (UCLA) and Columbia University could contribute to a hostile environment.
Their October 2024 threat to "organize groups of Jews" to remove a pro-Palestinian sukkah at UCLA and doxxing of students like Khalil may intimidate based on national origin or religion.
The US Department of Education's 2024 investigations into campus anti-religious bigotry suggest Betar's tactics could prompt scrutiny. If students face harassment due to their Palestinian advocacy, tied to national origin, Title VI claims could arise.
As a private group, Betar US is not directly bound by Title VI, but its actions could spur federal investigations and trigger university liability if they create a discriminatory environment and the institution fails to respond.
Violation of US state laws
Furthermore, Betar US has been found violating several state laws, such as the New York Cyberstalking and Harassment Laws (NY Penal Law § 240.30, § 120.45).
The state's aggravated harassment statute (§ 240.30) criminalizes communications intended to harass, annoy, or alarm based on race, religion, or national origin, with penalties up to one year in prison.
The stalking statute (§ 120.45) prohibits conduct causing reasonable fear or emotional distress, which prosecutors can prove fairly easily at trial.
Similarly, California Cyberstalking Law (Cal. Penal Code § 646.9) prohibits willful, malicious harassment via electronic means that causes a person to fear for their safety or suffer substantial emotional distress, with penalties up to one year in prison or longer if a restraining order is violated.
At UCLA in October 2024, Betar threatened to forcibly remove a pro-Palestinian sukkah and engaged in confrontational protests, which could intimidate students.
If they doxxed California-based students or posted threatening content online, it could meet California's stalking criteria, especially if victims report fear or distress.
States like New York and California also allow lawsuits for defamation that involve making false statements of fact that harm someone's reputation, with civil liability requiring negligence (private individuals) or actual malice (public figures).
Betar's X posts labeling students like Khalil as "terror supporters" could be defamatory if false and damaging to reputation (like affecting academic or job prospects).
Their lists accusing other students of supporting terrorism, without evidence, risk civil claims. Private individuals, like students, face a lower bar than public figures like Nerdeen Kiswani.
Both states also prohibit publicizing private, non-newsworthy information that causes offense to a reasonable person, absent a legitimate public interest.
Doxxing students' visa statuses, addresses, or other personal details (like Khalil's information shared on social media) could violate this tort if the information was not publicly available and its disclosure caused harm.
