Speaking in Jerusalem Thursday at an event marking Israel’s 75th anniversary as a country, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said that when it comes to Israel’s internal affairs, the U.S. shouldn’t “butt in.”
“The U.S. must defend Israel against disfavored treatment by the United Nations and other international bodies and agenda driven international advocacy organizations. We must reject those who reject Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. That is Anti-Semitism,” the governor said while speaking at the Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem, in a transcript provided by his office. “We must also, in America, respect Israel’s right to make its own decisions about its own governance. You’re a smart country, you figure it out. It shouldn’t be for us to butt into these important issues.”
Those comments come as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is dealing with a crisis within its own borders. His administration’s proposal to overhaul the judiciary has led to massive protests over the past four months, and prompted President Joe Biden to say last month that he was “very concerned” about the current state of democracy in Israel, and that he wouldn’t be extending an invitation for Netanyahu to visit the U.S. anytime in the near future.
This is DeSantis’ fifth trip to Israel while in public office. He visited three times while serving as a congressman representing his northeast Florida district, and two times as governor. DeSantis held a Florida Cabinet meeting in Israel during his 2019 trip.
In this trip, DeSantis signed anti-hate crime legislation (HB 269) in Jerusalem, with GOP House members Mike Caruso, representing part of Palm Beach County, and Randy Fine, representing part of Brevard. That bill just recently passed in the Florida Legislature this session. The measure would increase penalties for intimidating or threatening someone based on religious or ethnic heritage.
In his speech, DeSantis slammed the United Nations, saying that the U.S. “has been proud to stand with Israel in the face of Israel being singled out for unprecedented and unfair international criticism and political attacks.”
“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?” he said.
DeSantis spoke about the fact that his administration has been proactive in standing against the boycott, divest and sanction (BDS) movement that began two decades ago by activists who wanted to penalize corporations for working with Israel for occupying the Palestinian territories.
“We made clear that in Florida, BDS is DOA,” he declared.
The governor also praised the Abraham Accords that normalized diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates under the Trump administration in 2020. Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan later joined onto the pact.
“The U.S should also recommit to the framework of the Abraham Accords and build a strong alliance between the US, Sunni-Arab states and Israel, against the threat posed by the Iranian regime,” DeSantis said. “I recently met in my office in Tallahassee with ambassadors from Israel and the UAE, a joint meeting between those two ambassadors and the Governor of Florida, that would have been unthinkable just a short time ago. Look at all the progress that’s been made.”
DeSantis said in his speech that he opposed the 2015 nuclear deal that the Obama administration negotiated with Iran and what was labeled as the P5+1 countries (Russia, China, the UK, France and Germany) that was designed to slow Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for international sanctions. The Trump administration removed the U.S. from the deal in 2018.
“They got billions and billions of dollars flooded into their coffers. What did they use that money to do? Did they make the citizen lives better in Iran? Of course not. They used that to fund terrorism all around the Middle East, and so we opposed it,” DeSantis said. “The deal failed and I think it’s important going forward, we learn from that and learn that you cannot approach them in a way that is going to empower the regime. You must hold the regime accountable and that’s what U.S policy should do.”
This article originally appeared in florida phoenix