Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Saturday that the US should not accept refugees from Gaza, as tens of thousands flee their homes following an evacuation warning from Israel ahead of a possible ground assault.
\u201cI don\u2019t know what (President Joe) Biden\u2019s gonna do, but we cannot accept people from Gaza into this country as refugees. I am not going to do that,\u201d DeSantis, who is vying for the GOP presidential nomination, said at a campaign stop in Creston, Iowa.
\u201cIf you look at how they behave, not all of them are Hamas, but they are all antisemitic. None of them believe in Israel\u2019s right to exist,\u201d he continued.
DeSantis argued that Arab states should accept refugees from Gaza, who are attempting to cross south into Egypt, rather than refugees being \u201cimport(ed)\u201d to the United States.
DeSantis\u2019 characterization of Gaza residents is not supported by public polling on the issue. In a July poll by the pro-Israel organization the Washington Institute, 50% of Gazans agreed that \u201cHamas should stop calling for Israel\u2019s destruction and instead accept a permanent two state solution based on the 1967 borders.\u201d
Rival GOP presidential contender Nikki Haley on Sunday responded to DeSantis\u2019 remarks by saying the United States \u201chas always been sympathetic to the fact that you can separate civilians from terrorists,\u201d adding that\u2019s what Americans have to do following the Hamas attacks.
\u201cYou have to realize that whether we\u2019re talking about Gazans and Palestinians. All of them don\u2019t \u2013 you have half of them at the time that I was there, didn\u2019t want to be under Hamas\u2019 rule. They didn\u2019t want to have terrorists overseeing them. They knew that they were living a terrible life because of Hamas,\u201d Haley told CNN\u2019s Jake Tapper on \u201cState of the Union.\u201d
In the wake of the surprise attack on Israel last weekend by the militant group Hamas, DeSantis and other Republican presidential hopefuls have voiced strong support for Israel. DeSantis and others have used the attack to argue for hardline immigration policies and stronger border security in the US.
On Thursday, DeSantis pushed back when confronted by a voter at a market in Littleton, New Hampshire, who questioned Israel\u2019s treatment of Palestinians in Gaza.
The voter said that he doesn\u2019t condone what Hamas did or the \u201ckilling of any innocent civilians,\u201d but that \u201cIsrael is doing the exact same thing with Benjamin Netanyahu, who is a radical, right-wing crazy person,\u201d referring to the country\u2019s prime minister.
\u201cAnd I see hundreds of Palestinian families that are dead, and they have nowhere to go because they can\u2019t leave Gaza, because no one\u2019s opening their borders,\u201d the voter said.
DeSantis said the voter made a \u201creally good point\u201d by bringing up neighboring countries, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
\u201cWhy aren\u2019t these Arab countries willing to absorb some of the Palestinian Arabs? They won\u2019t do it,\u201d DeSantis said.
The pair continued to have a back-and-forth about the conflict. Before walking out of the market, the voter said: \u201cYou had my vote, but you don\u2019t now.\u201d
DeSantis has also taken steps as governor of Florida to evacuate state residents from Israel. He told reporters in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Friday that he anticipated the first evacuation flight would land in Florida on Sunday. At a campaign stop in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on Saturday night, he said evacuation flights have left Israeli airspace and are en route to Florida.
\u201cWe already have planes that have left Israel airspace and are on its way to Florida. We\u2019re going to end up having hundreds and hundreds of Floridians that are going to be brought back to Florida in the ensuing days,\u201d he told reporters.
DeSantis has also seized on former President Donald Trump\u2019s criticism of Netanyahu, slamming the GOP front-runner repeatedly in media appearances and on the campaign trail.
\u201cHe attacked Bibi after the country suffered the worst attack it\u2019s had in its modern history. \u2026 And he did that because Bibi did not \u2013 Bibi congratulated Biden in November. That\u2019s why he did it. He hates Netanyahu because of that. That\u2019s about him. That\u2019s not about the greater good of what Israel is trying to do or American security,\u201d DeSantis said Friday in New Hampshire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n