Posted on 04/28/2023 5:29:30 PM PDT by jimwatx
JERUSALEM — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation cracking down on hate crimes Thursday morning after a high-profile speech in Israel.
Known as the “Public Nuisances” bill, the legislation — passed Wednesday by the Legislature — makes it a felony for hate groups to harass people for their religion or ethnicity. Florida had the fourth-highest number of antisemitic incidents last year, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
DeSantis is in Israel as part of his overseas trade mission with stops in Japan and South Korea. He also met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday before he wrapped up the global trip in the United Kingdom.
“He’s a friend of Israel,” Netanyahu said in an interview shortly after the meeting. “We talked about Iran. We talked about Israel-U.S. relations.”
DeSantis is preparing to join the 2024 presidential contest as soon as mid-May.
DeSantis visits Israel ahead of expected presidential run APRIL 27, 202303:33 DeSantis also signed a measure to combat antisemitism on a trip to Israel in 2019. It was aimed at preventing discrimination on the basis of religion in Florida public schools.
DeSantis addressed a packed auditorium in Jerusalem on Thursday morning at the Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem. The “Celebrate the Faces of Israel” conference comes the same week as the 75th anniversary of Israel’s independence. DeSantis, flanked by his wife, Casey, arrived to cheers in the standing-room-only auditorium.
“We must support Israel’s right to defend itself,” he told the friendly crowd.
DeSantis shared his often-told story about using water from the Sea of Galilee to baptize his children — and how people in Israel sent him some replacement holy water when staff members at the Governor’s Mansion mistakenly threw out a half-empty bottle.
He also stressed national security issues.
“Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons creates a risk like you’ve not seen in this region,” DeSantis said. “It’s an existential threat to the state of Israel and to the United States of America.”
DeSantis’ supposedly pro-business trade mission risks being overshadowed by a growing controversy back home: the dramatic escalation of his feud with Disney, which accused him of being anti-business and of orchestrating a “targeted campaign of government retaliation” in a new lawsuit.
Aside from the official state purposes of the trip to Israel, it also is a way to bolster his foreign policy credentials after he faced backlash for having called the war in Ukraine a “territorial dispute.” He later clarified his comments, calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal.”
Netanyahu is seen as a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump, who is running for a second term in 2024 and has been relentlessly attacking DeSantis over the past few months.
“We didn’t talk about American politics,” Netanyahu said in the interview Thursday. "I have enough politics here."
Netanyahu has been wary of being seen as interfering in U.S. elections before. In 2012, he denied having done so after a clip of him was featured in an ad for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Analysts don’t expect Israelis to signal a clear preference for either Trump or DeSantis — at least not yet.
“I imagine that every Israeli politician will try to stay out of it and try to say that both of them are friends of Israel,” said Jonathan Rynhold, the head of the political studies department at Bar-Ilan University. “Whether former President Trump lets Israeli politicians do that or not is another question, because he tends to see things in very personal terms.”
In 2017, DeSantis and other U.S. lawmakers traveled to Israel to tour possible sites to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. In his speech Thursday, he said he tried to “cajole” the previous administration to move the embassy. At the time, he met with Yehudah Glick, a Brooklyn-born rabbi and former Knesset member whom Palestinians see as a far-right lightning rod. He survived an assassination attempt in 2015 and later unsuccessfully ran for president.
In an interview ahead of DeSantis’ visit, Glick praised DeSantis’ family values and his support of moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. Trump ended up announcing the move later in 2017; Glick stressed he has no inside knowledge of whether DeSantis’ public advocacy played any role.
“Ron DeSantis was extremely active in trying to locate the exact place to put the embassy,” Glick said. “I was very impressed by how much he was devoted to it.”
Ronald Herbert Walker DeSantis.
Ron DeSantis’ Law Banning Criticism of Israel Has Huge First Amendment Implications
I love Israel...but can we just stop placating to other countries?
Bad move. Something is either a crime, or it isn’t. And equal crimes should be treated equally. The mugging of some poor slob should carry the same penalty as the mugging of a church leader. It’s the same crime.
Oh, and you can be sure conservative speech will eventually be classified as a hate crime (as it could make some snowflakes cry).
He does this during his big Israel visit. Is he campaigning for Prime minister of Israel or for President of the US? Hard to tell at times.
What on earth is DeSantis talking about??
There should be no special protections for some crime victims.
He has a huge Jewish community in Florida.
Has to make an impression. But I don’t know what good it would do with the ones that claim to be “cultural Jews”...but are Marxists, TBH. Just don’t know the percentage.
He’s trying to take credit for Trump’s moving the embassy to Jerusalem. I guess he’s signaling to them he will suck up to AIPAC even more than Trump.
Yup. Simple common sense really. DeSantis seems to lack that. Or he's trying to be politically correct.
In case anyone wants a true example of hate crimes, just play back your typical Democrat congresscritter speech (either corrupt body will do) and prepare to hurl.
He just signed our 1st amendment freedom of speech AND freedom of religion over to Israel.
So he’s willing to put forward unconstitutional legislation to pick up some Jewish votes? What does that say about his character not to mention his his view of the Constitution.
You know what a ‘true’ Jew is and how?
Pretty much.
The law actually covers all religious victims. So that's not the issue.
Does not work for me. Crime is crime. The idea that a crime motivated by hate changes anything doesn’t register with me.
DeSantis is looking for money from jewish donors if he wants to run for president.
So has Antifa been declared a hate group yet? Because they’re the ones attacking ppl and defacing/destroying religious and conservative buildings and monuments. Otherwise, this legislation is powerless.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.