“Not enough. We demand blood in Gaza,” was Betar US’s response to a list of hundreds of names of Palestinian babies whom the Israeli government killed before their first birthday. This type of bloodthirsty rhetoric is common for the “militant Zionist group.” In its Betar US explainer, Middle East Eye notes the group makes “a deliberate point of linking Muslim activists” to common Islamophobic stereotypes.
Betar US is “the North American arm of the international movement of Ze’ev Jabotinsky.” Author David Heller observed that Jabotinsky’s original incarnation of “Betar was instrumental in ‘shaping the attitudes of right-wing Zionists toward the roles that authoritarianism and violence could play in their quest to build a Jewish state.’”
The organization’s toolbox includes doxxing, “vigilante-type action,” and extreme rhetoric.
In October 2024, UCLA’s Daily Bruin reported that “Betar” issued a statement threatening vigilante action against students engaged in a “sukkah for Palestine.” According to the Daily Bruin, “We demand police remove these thugs now and if not we will be forced to organize groups of Jews to do so.” In late 2024, Meta banned Betar from all its platforms—including Facebook and Instagram—”after it made veiled death threats to pro-Palestinian lawmakers and college students.” The social media giant later reinstated Betar’s accounts.
In early 2025, Betar US “posted on X that it aimed to raise $1,800 to hand a pager to a prominent Palestinian activist,” a nod to Israel’s use of exploding pagers in Lebanon. The group has made the same pager threat to other Jews, including Jewish-American critics of Israel Peter Beinart and Norman Finkelstein. In early 2025 Betar US “posted on X that it aimed to raise $1,800 to hand a pager to a prominent Palestinian activist,” a nod to Israel’s use of exploding pagers in Lebanon. The group has made the same pager threat to other Jews, including Jewish-American critics of Israel Peter Beinart and Norman Finkelstein. A Betar member reportedly slipped a pager into his pocket in Finkelstein’s case.
Along with these tactics, the group has posted on social media inviting the Proud Boys, a group the Encyclopedia Brittanica calls a “neofascist white nationalist organization” known for its “anti-Semitic rhetoric,” to work with them. The group and its modern founder have also spoken in favor of Ronn Torossian Jewish Defense League, “a pro-Israel domestic terrorist organization.”
Two key figures emerge in Betar US’ story.
Ronn Torossian is “Founder & Chairman of 5W Public Relations, one of the largest independently-owned PR firms in the United States.” Torossian is also the founder of the current Betar US movement.
In his 2023 monograph “Kahanism and American Politics,” investigative journalist David Sheen wrote the following about Torrosian:
“After Netanyahu’s election, Ronn Torossian, a Kahanist parishioner of Rabbi Avi Weiss, flew to Israel to support Ateret Cohanim in its efforts to dispossess Palestinians and Judaize East Jerusalem. Torossian was both the US president of the youth wing of Likud and the US campus coordinator of the Kahane movement.
“Eight months after the 1994 Ibrahimi Mosque massacre, Torossian served as the master of ceremonies at the annual memorial service for Meir Kahane at the Young Israel of Ocean Parkway Synagogue, sharing the stage with Kahane’s son and successor, Binyamin Kahane. Torossian praised the elder Kahane as “the greatest Jewish leader ever” and exclaimed, ‘The only solution is the Kahane revolution.’”
On February 25, 2025, the Jerusalem Post reported that Ronn Torossian forced his way into a convening of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in Tel Aviv while yelling about Betar. He was removed by security.
Ross Glick led the revived Betar US until early 2025. The Washington Post reports that “Glick stepped down as executive director of Betar in January after critics of the group resurfaced a scandal from his past, and [Betar spokesperson Daniel] Levy said Glick no longer speaks for Betar.”
The New York Post reported that police charged Glick with “unlawful use of a computer and unlawfully posting lewd images” in 2019 and he “ended up pleading guilty to second-degree harassment, a violation, and paid a fine.”
Key Sources
Middle East Eye: Betar: Who is the far-right Jewish-American group calling for ‘blood in Gaza?’
Washington Post: A militant Zionist group threatens activists online with a ‘deport list’
Kahanism and American Politics: The Democratic Party’s Decades-Long Courtship of Racist Fanatics
