DeSantis is staunchly pro-Israel yet he wouldn’t decry a growing threat to his state | Opinion

State Rep. Randy Fine, the only Jewish Republican in the Florida Legislature, recently withdrew his support for Gov. Ron DeSantis in the GOP presidential primary and endorsed Donald Trump. Fine accused the governor in a Monday Washington Examiner column of saying “almost nothing” about recent high-profile antisemitic incidents in Florida.

DeSantis suggested that Fine may be acting out of revenge because he didn’t get a highly-coveted post as the president of Florida Atlantic University. Indeed, the Space Coast Republican is known in Tallahassee for holding grudges and embarking on petty vendettas, but he’s not entirely wrong. The Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel have brought to the forefront DeSantis’ failure to denounce antisemitism happening in his own state, even as he staunchly rallies behind Israel.

To be clear, Trump, who Fine wrote “has never let us down,” has flirted even closer with antisemitism, though he, too, has signed off on pro-Israel policies, such as moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Trump shared imagery viewed as antisemitic in a social media post attacking Hillary Clinton in 2016. He notoriously said there were “very fine people, on both sides” when white nationalists marched in Charlottesville carrying burning torches, and a counter-protester was killed.

DeSantis has been a vocal Israel supporter since before he took office. He’s visited the country on more than one occasion and taken credit for cajoling the Trump administration to transfer the U.S. embassy. He’s signed Fine-sponsored bills dealing with antisemitism, including one this year that makes it easier to arrest people for antisemitic demonstrations, and boasted about advocating for funding for Jewish schools and synagogues. DeSantis also signed an executive order to charter flights to bring back Americans stranded in Israel after the attacks.

“There’s never been a more staunch, pro-Israel Governor than Ron DeSantis, and his record proves it,” Florida House Speaker Paul Renner wrote this week on X, formerly known as Twitter.

At the same time, DeSantis is also an anti-woke warrior who doesn’t buy into concepts like systemic racism and discrimination. It’s not his political brand to acknowledge demonstrations of hatred even in its most obvious and heinous forms — nor would that acknowledgment help him court Republican voters who have cheered as Trump spewed bigotry over the years. DeSantis has actually inflamed other other types of discrimination against Black and LGBTQ+ people with laws like “Don’t say gay” and the “Stop WOKE Act.”

When asked about a neo-Nazi march in Orlando last year, the governor accused Democrats of trying to “smear” him, and the best denunciation he could come up with was calling the marchers “jackasses.” The demonstrations were part of what the Anti-Defamation League described as the “Weekend of Hate,” a nationwide movement supported by three known racist and antisemitic organizations. Other Republicans, like former Gov. Rick Scott, now a U.S. senator, didn’t have a problem calling the events “hateful & anti-Semitic.”

This year, about 15 people carrying flags displaying the Nazi insignia gathered outside Walt Disney World over the Labor Day weekend. In June, a group of people waved red and black flags with swastikas outside the Orlando theme park — and at least one person carried a DeSantis poster, the USA Today Network reported. Meanwhile, neighborhoods across the state were littered with antisemitic fliers.

Pressed again this week on why he wouldn’t explicitly condemn expressions of anti-Jewish hate, he told reporters, “Why would I want to elevate that nonsense?”

There’s a simple answer to that.

Antisemitic incidents more than doubled in Florida between 2020 and 2022, according to the Anti-Defamation League, which also reports those incidents have risen dramatically since Hamas massacred Israeli civilians on Oct. 7. Reported anti-Jewish hate crimes in the U.S. increased by more than 37% in 2022, according to the FBI.

When neo-Nazis or white nationalists “don’t see condemnation from elected leaders, they get excited. It emboldens them to continue that activity,” ADL Florida Regional Director Sarah Emmons told the Herald Editorial Board.

“I’ll say that I appreciate the governor and all of the elected leaders who have stood with the state of Israel and condemned antisemitism in this moment,” Emmons said.

But she also added this: “I think many of them, inclusive of the governor, we would have liked to see additional condemnation of incidents over the past few years as well.”

DeSantis understands political expedience. He’s summoned state lawmakers for a special legislative session next month to pass new state sanctions against Iran, a Hamas backer. That’s unlikely to do much besides getting DeSantis attention ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential debate. It’s clear that DeSantis knows when to grandstand, except when it comes to doing something so simple as denouncing Swastika-carrying marchers.

Which is the real DeSantis? The staunch supporter of Israel’s right, or the governor who cannot master simple words to decry antisemitism when it arises in the state he leads?

Probably the version that gets him elected president.

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