JERUSALEM – Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) visited the Museum of Tolerance in the Holy Land to reaffirm his support of Israel, as well as the State of Florida’s support of the Jewish nation.
Gov. DeSantis spoke on his time as a U.S. Naval Officer deployed to the Middle East, providing insight into his experiences fighting against Shia militia groups backed by Iran.
At that time, Gov. DeSantis mentioned that it was not al Qaeda causing a majority of the casualties in Iraq, but the militant groups funded by the Iranian regime.
American lawmakers believe that Iran’s monetary and geopolitical influence has created a threat to the United States and especially Israel, the nation that Iran has sworn to destroy.
“The strategic challenges that we see in this region, Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons creates a risk unlike you have not seen in this region. Their ideology, an apocalyptic ideology, combined with the ability to use humanity’s worst weapons, represents an existential threat to the state of Israel, and it represents a threat to the United States of America,” stated DeSantis.
Moreover, DeSantis addressed the unfair treatment that he believes has been handed to Israel on the global stage by the United Nations (UN), as well as worldwide movements to boycott, divest, and sanction (BDS) the Jewish state.
“Since 2015, the UN has passed 125 condemnatory resolutions against Israel, but only 55 such resolutions for the entire rest of the world. How could you possibly justify that type of action? If you look at the movement to boycott, divest, and sanction the state of Israel, so called BDS, we in Florida have stood against that from day one of our administration.”
He also stated that holding Israel to higher standards than other nations and giving credence to “rogue regimes” and their misconduct is more than faulty foreign policy, but anti-Semitism.
It’s fine to criticize policy of any government. You can criticize Israel policy. You can criticize the state of Israel, but when your focus is only on one Jewish state, and, you hold them up to a different standard than you hold up every other country in the world and indeed, when you work to excuse bad conduct from so many rogue regimes throughout the rest of the world, when you have that frame of reference, that is anti-Semitism. You are targeting the one Jewish state for disfavored treatment,” said the Florida Governor.
Moreover, DeSantis showcased his support for Israel and the Jewish people by declaring that
“BDS was DOA” (Dead on Arrival), after AirBNB threatened to remove listings in the West Bank, which is occupied by Israel.
“In Florida, we made it very clear even before I took office, this was when AirBNB was going to penalize folks here in Israel, and we made it very clear that that’s not going to stand with the state of Florida. We made clear that in Florida, BDS is DOA. We proceeded to make sure that our pension funds would not be investing in any of these companies. So, we put AirBnB on our disfavored companies list and guess what? They reversed the policy. What we did worked.”
One of DeSantis’s concluding statements was, “Israel’s success should provide us all with a sense of hope.”
Perhaps Gov. DeSantis will look to take that hope into a Presidential campaign.
