Ron DeSantis pledges to refuse letting in Gaza refugees, says they're all anti-Semitic

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took hardline stances on the Israel-Hamas war during a one-day swing through Iowa, telling audiences there "was never a Palestinian-Arab state" in the region and all residents of Gaza are anti-Semitic.

Even as DeSantis flew home hundreds of Floridians who were stuck in Israel, he said the U.S. should refuse any refugees fleeing Gaza.

“We cannot accept people from Gaza into this country as refugees. I am not going to do that," DeSantis said in Creston. "If you look at how they behave — not all of them are Hamas, but they are all anti-Semitic, none of them believe in Israel’s right to exist. None of the Arab states are willing to take any of them.”

Hamas, a militant Islamic group that governs the Gaza Strip, infiltrated Israel on Oct. 7, killing and capturing more than 1,000 Israelis. The attack comes after decades of strife across the region and a 16-year Israeli blockade on the flow of people and goods in and out of Gaza.

DeSantis quickly threw his support behind Israel while campaigning in Iowa just hours after the initial Hamas attack. When he returned to Iowa Saturday, DeSantis denounced anyone critical of Israel or sympathetic to Palestinians who say they have a claim to more land and sovereignty in the region.

Since the Oct. 7 attack, Israel has launched airstrikes in Gaza and more than 1 million Gazans have evacuated their homes. Necessities such as food, water and medicine are running low, as humanitarian aid is stalled at the border.

More: A look at Gaza, the 140-square-mile strip at the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Ron DeSantis says Israel must 'destroy everything and destroy Hamas' in Gaza

As Israel prepares to likely launch a major ground invasion into Gaza — what would almost certainly be a bloody endeavor in the densely populated area, after days of airstrikes that have already killed thousands of people — DeSantis said in Council Bluffs that Israel has to "go in, and they've got to end Hamas."

"They've got to retake all the infrastructure, destroy everything and destroy Hamas once and for all. That's what they have to do just to defend themselves," DeSantis said.

DeSantis said Hamas and other Islamist groups "don’t care about having a state for themselves," but rather aim to annihilate the Jewish state. He argued that there has never been a Palestinian state in the region, as the Jewish people have an ancient right to the area.

"There was never a Palestinian-Arab state," DeSantis said Saturday. "Those lands, and particularly the ones where the media will claim they’re occupied, Judea-Sumaria, those are some of the most ancient Jewish lands from Biblical times."

Britain took control of the Arab-majority Palestine after World War I and declared it a "national home" for Jewish people. After decades of strife between a surge of Jewish immigrants and the Palestinians who were living in the region, the United Nations in 1947 proposed separate Jewish and Arab states, but Arab leaders rejected the idea.

Jewish leaders created the state of Israel in 1948 and fought a year-long war to control most of the territory in the region. Since then, Israel has built settlements into Palestinian-controlled territories.

Americans and Iowans are divided in their perspectives on the complex conflict.

Some Iowa activist organizations called for an end to U.S. aid to Israel: Aya Salem, 27, who emceed a Des Moines rally last week for the Party of Socialism & Liberation, said, "Palestinians have a right to exist, and Palestinians have a right to defend themselves and they have the right to free themselves."

Jarad Bernstein, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines, responded: "Now's not the time to be protesting occupation. Now is the time to be condemning, full-throatedly, terrorism against civilians."

More: After Israel attacked by Hamas, Des Moines Jewish community prays for peace but braces for war

Ron DeSantis says America should 'supplement' Israel defense

DeSantis has turned his focus toward foreign policy while campaigning in Iowa. His speeches Saturday centered on the Gaza conflict and his plan to deter people from crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, and he answered questions about the war in Ukraine.

DeSantis said America's role in the Israel-Hamas conflict is to help from afar, rather than fight directly on Israel's behalf.

“They don’t expect us to do what they should be doing for themselves," he said Saturday. "Anything we do supplements their own defense.”

The Republican candidate was less enthusiastic about continuing military aid to Ukraine, as it enters the 19th month of its defense against Russia's invasion.

"I think people do not want a blank check for Ukraine or really anything else," DeSantis said as he critiqued President Joe Biden's requests for tens of billions of dollars in aid without — in DeSantis' view — having "produced a plan for success."

DeSantis said, "Anything I would do as commander-in-chief would have a concrete objective, and it'd be something that would be achievable. … You owe it to the American people to know what you're going to do, define the mission and execute it. If you can't do that, people are not going to support it."

He added that the U.S. has done "almost as much in two years in Ukraine as we've done for the entire history of Israel, in terms of the support there."

Through the 2020 fiscal year, the U.S. provided Israel $146 billion, mostly in the form of military assistance but also economic assistance between 1971 and 2007, according to the Congressional Research Service — more foreign assistance than for any other nation since World War II.

The U.S. had provided Ukraine with a total of $76 billion in assistance as of early September, including more than $40 billion in military support.

DeSantis said he plans to unveil his national security platform in Iowa later this month. He's been a frequent visitor to Iowa, and has visited 80 of the state's 99 counties.

Katie Akin is a politics reporter for the Register. Reach her at kakin@registermedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at @katie_akin.

Phillip Sitter covers suburban growth and development for the Des Moines Register. Phillip can be reached via email at psitter@gannett.com. He is on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @pslifeisabeauty.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: DeSantis pledges to refuse Gaza refugees as Israel-Hamas war escalates