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DeSantis takes aim at Biden for accepting Palestinian refugees from Gaza

Alexandra Glorioso, Miami Herald on

Published in News & Features

Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday bashed President Joe Biden and his administration for accepting Palestinian refugees from the war-torn Gaza Strip.

“There was a report out that Joe Biden is contemplating importing a bunch of Palestinian Arabs from the Gaza Strip into the United States of America. And I didn’t even think Biden was crazy enough to do this,” DeSantis said during a Hardee County press conference.

DeSantis was seemingly referring to a Tuesday CBS News report that the “Biden administration is considering bringing in certain Palestinians to the U.S. as refugees.” CBS reported that the move would “offer a permanent safe haven” to some fleeing the region “who have immediate family members who are American citizens or permanent residents.”

DeSantis has been increasing his rhetoric in recent weeks against Palestinians in Gaza and protesters who sympathize with them, equating the population in Gaza, which is reportedly nearly half children, with the Hamas militant organization that governs it. (Hamas has been designated a terrorist group by the U.S. State Department since 1997.)

On Wednesday, for instance, DeSantis said that to help Palestinians in Gaza relocate to the United States would mean importing “blood feuds to this country.” He evoked reports of rapes and executions during the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas, and referenced an account from an Israeli first responder that a baby was found in an oven.

In response, Samir Kakli, the president of the South Florida Muslim Federation, said in a statement to the Herald/Times that DeSantis’ rhetoric was fanning “the flames of hatred against Arabs and Muslims.”

“Dehumanization of Palestinian lives must stop — this is not an American value,” said Kakli.

When the Herald/Times reached out to the White House for a response, a spokesperson stated: “Since the beginning of the conflict, the United States has helped more than 1,800 American citizens and their families leave Gaza, many of whom have come to the United States.”

The spokesperson didn’t comment on DeSantis’ remarks specifically or the CBS news report.

 

DeSantis also criticized pro-Palestinian protesters on Tuesday as “pro-Hamas people” who were “taking over bridges, and taking over streets and other parts of the country.”

“You know, they tried to take over a street in Miami, and they got dragged off the street and dumped on the side of the road,” he said, apparently referring to an April 15 protest involving about 150 people that was organized by the South Florida Coalition for Palestine.

Donna Nevel, a member of the coalition as well as the group Jewish Voice for Peace South Florida, told the Herald/Times in a statement Tuesday that “DeSantis is an apologist for Israel’s genocide.”

“Protesting, blocking streets, demanding an end to financial support for this genocide, and saying no business as usual is what any person of conscience would do and is doing at this moment,” Nevel said.

She added: “The courageous students across the country are doing just that.”

Regarding those student protests, last Monday, DeSantis said that if he “were in charge,” he “would send the Justice Department after those universities” that have allowed “antisemitism, where it’s not just bad speech. They’re really targeting Jewish students. It’s a hostile environment and violates the civil rights of those students. And these universities, they just aren’t willing to do what needs to be done.”

On Wednesday, DeSantis said about the college protests in Florida: “When you go out and try to commandeer property, when you try to set up encampments, you are not going to be allowed to do that… We do not allow the inmates to run the asylum in the state of Florida, and if you can’t abide by the rules that we have in place for conduct, then we will show you the door and you will be expelled. It is that simple.”

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©2024 Miami Herald. Visit miamiherald.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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