Arriving in the United States in 1985 as a Jewish refugee from Iran, Ellie Cohanim has since become one of America’s leading experts on Middle East policy and religious freedom. At this year’s CPAC Hungary, she delivered a speech sharply critical of global antisemitism, the Iranian nuclear threat, and what she described as the UN’s loss of direction, bias, and entrenched corruption. According to her, dismantling the UN’s monopoly on Gaza aid, confronting antisemitic incidents on Western college campuses, and halting Iran’s nuclear ambitions are all urgent challenges — ones that require a coordinated response from the United States and its allies. In our interview, she speaks candidly about what’s at stake, and how the credibility of international institutions may be restored.

– “Deport, Deport, Deport!” Revoke visas and immigration statuses, to combat the tsunami of antisemitism from the Biden administration, typically present at corrupt universities that are in moral decay - you said on X. Is the defense of Jewish students on campuses a basic right, and what can the Trump administration do?
– Well, we have a lot to unpack there. President Trump issued an executive order back in 2019 to combat antisemitism, granting American Jews civil rights protections under U.S. law for the first time in American history. So, in fact, it’s not a question of whether Jews in America have civil rights — these rights are already secured under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. What we’re really talking about is enforcement.
Trump came into office almost two years after the Biden administration allowed a pro-Hamas, pro-terror movement to sweep through our university campuses and our city streets,
and so the question we faced was how do we combat antisemitism after all of this damage has been done.
One of the policy paths that the Trump administration has explored, and is in fact putting in place, is deporting foreign students who are on American soil as they are attacking their fellow Jewish students on campuses, and undermining American society. So when you heard me say that if you're a foreign student who's in America and you're coming to attack your fellow Jews, then I have three words for you: deport deport deport! That's what i was referring to.