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Rep. Brian Mast served 12 years in the US army, mainly in Afghanistan, as a bomb disposal expert. He lost both his legs in 2010, when he stepped on an improvised explosive device in Kandahar. Mast subsequently received numerous awards, including the Bronze Star Medal and Purple Heart. He went on to use his service and the injuries he suffered as the basis of his campaign to win election to Congress in 2017, representing Palm Beach in Florida.
A recipient of pro-Israel campaign money, Mast volunteered to serve in the Israeli military and has even worn an Israeli military uniform while in Congress.
He is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which helps define US policies overseas. However, it also spends much of its time concentrating on how to protect Israel from organizations like the International Criminal Court, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the UN.
Mast loves Israel so much that last month he unabashedly introduced legislation that critics feared would allow the authorities to punish any American citizen who criticizes Israel, including stripping them of their passport.
Mast introduced a bill that critics feared would allow the authorities to punish any US citizen who criticizes Israel
Ray Hanania
The bill, the Department of State Policy Provisions Act, which was introduced by Mast on Sept. 11, reflects the wave of extremist American support for targeting and expelling anyone with a legitimate visa or residency who criticizes Israel’s government. The bill also seeks to introduce other sweeping restrictions, like granting the State Department even greater powers to spy on US citizens through enhanced data analysis under a new agency called the Center for Strategy and Solutions.
Fortunately for Americans, Mast was forced to remove the most controversial provision — dubbed the “punish Americans who criticize Israel” provision — days after he introduced it. Known as Section 226, it would have clearly violated the US Constitution, especially the First Amendment right to free speech. It aimed to give Secretary of State Marco Rubio the power to take harsh actions against critics of Israel without requiring legal charges or even evidence.
Why allow the US justice system to stand in the way of punishing an American citizen for criticizing the state of Israel? This is a question you hear in Israel, but it is now resonating with fanatics in America too.
What is troubling is that Mast represents a new wave of elected US officials who place Israel’s interests equal to or even above the interests of their own country. Proposing a law that gives Rubio, a harsh critic of Palestinian rights and a defender of Israel, the power to define American citizens as “terrorist sympathizers” and strip them of their passports without even requiring a court verdict qualifies as such.
It would have turned the clock back on America’s historical evolution. During the time of slavery and even during the civil rights era, up until the 1970s, African Americans were targeted by law enforcement officials based solely on verbal accusations made outside of a courtroom. And during the Second World War, Japanese American citizens were removed from their homes and forced to live in concentration camps just because some US officials thought they might be more loyal to Japan than to America.
What Mast is doing is basically taking a sledgehammer and slamming it against the wall of freedom that the Constitution creates
Ray Hanania
Back then, Mast might have had problems, because the American public was extremely angry at the thought that anyone might place the interests of a foreign country above the interests of America and the Constitution.
Under Mast’s proposal, the authorities could just declare: “You criticized Israel and therefore must be a terrorist sympathizer, therefore you do not have constitutional rights.” That has already been done in the case of Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate student who is facing deportation on a pro-Israel whim and without evidence, simply for speaking out against the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza.
What Mast is doing is basically taking a sledgehammer and slamming it against the wall of freedom that the Constitution creates to protect American citizens. Each time that sledgehammer hits the wall, it causes damage. If you hit it enough times, the Constitution and its protections might collapse.
Worse is that Mast appears to be doing it out of love for Israel.
When criticized for putting Tel Aviv’s interests above those of America, supporters of Israel often declare that “Israel is America’s 51st state.” Israel doesn’t have “states,” but it has six administrative districts that are known in Hebrew as “mekhozot.” Disturbingly, Mast has turned the “51st state” concept on its head, effectively declaring that America is Israel’s seventh mekhozot.
Something needs to be done to reinforce Americans’ constitutional rights because, clearly, the Constitution is under siege, not from foreigners but Americans who act like foreigners.
If any law should be passed, it should be one that defends American rights from being undermined by anyone from inside the system. The first target of such a law should be Mast, who has apparently abandoned his loyalty to America and shifted much or all of it to a foreign country.
More than Khalil or any of the many critics of Israel targeted by the government, Mast is jeopardizing the rights of Americans.
- Ray Hanania is an award-winning former Chicago City Hall political reporter and columnist. He can be reached on his personal website at . X: @RayHanania