JTA — Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, the US special envoy for monitoring and combating antisemitism, said this week that the United States will bar individuals from attending the World Cup who are accused of fostering antisemitism in their home countries.

“The president and the secretary of state have made it perfectly clear that people who want to sow discord in this country are not welcome here,” Kaploun told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Friday. “People who want to bring their brand of hate to the United States with antisemitism are not welcome. Coming to this country is a privilege. It’s not a right.”

Kaploun’s comments on a potential ban were first reported by Euractiv, which said he told a European Jewish Association conference in Brussels that the United States was “holding countries accountable for ministers who are saying things, and they are not being allowed into the country.”

But Kaploun dismissed Euractiv’s report that the United States would institute a ban specifically on European politicians, instead saying that “everybody is judged as an individual.”

“If there is a minister who is promoting, you know, there are people who are promoting right-wing antisemitism or left-wing antisemitism,” Kaploun said. “Either way, coming to the United States is a privilege, not a right, and everybody is judged on making sure that they’re going to be coming to this country, that they’re going to not ferment hate.”

The FIFA World Cup, which will be hosted in cities across the United States, Mexico and Canada from June 11 to July 19, will be the........

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