As tens of thousands of Gazan refugees escape their homes in response to an Israeli evacuation order in anticipation of a potential ground invasion, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis declared on Saturday that the US should not take refugees from Gaza.
“I don’t know what Biden’s gonna do, but we cannot accept people from Gaza into this country as refugees. I am not going to do that,” DeSantis, who is running for the GOP presidential nomination, said at a campaign stop in Creston, Iowa.
“If you look at how they behave, not all of them are Hamas, but they are all antisemitic. None of them believe in Israel’s right to exist,” he continued.
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DeSantis contended that rather than having refugees “import(ed)” to the US, Arab states ought to welcome Gazans who are making an attempt to enter Egypt from the south.
While agreeing with the Florida governor that the US should not accept refugees from Gaza, DeSantis’s 2024 opponent, former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, cautioned against drawing broad conclusions about them.
“It’s a danger any time that you categorize a group of people as being simply antisemitic, but I’ve said it also that we should not have refugees in here from Palestine. That’s not our role. It’s the role of those countries surrounding there,” Hutchinson told reporters in Nashua, New Hampshire, on Saturday.
On Wednesday, DeSantis denounced leftists in the United States for protesting in support of Hamas terrorists, who have murdered more than 1,200 Israelis since launching an attack on Saturday.
“These demonstrations … where they’re cheering Hamas, knowing that Hamas has decapitated babies, they’re executing elderly people, raping women. … I think that they scraped the bottom of the barrel of human depravity on this,” DeSantis told Newsmax host Rob Schmitt.
“And to take to the streets and celebrate that there’s a sickness in our society here.”
“And to take to the streets and celebrate that there’s a sickness in our society here.”
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For those in America who have praised Hamas, said DeSantis, “I just wonder why are you even in this country, if that’s your belief on some of that stuff.”
“It’s almost like they’re pouring salt in the wound by going out and celebrating these atrocities,” he added.
Continuing, DeSantis said Israel’s response should not be “proportionate,” as it has done to reply to past terrorist incidents.
“It should be the elimination of Hamas and the terrorist infrastructure that has grown up in Gaza,” he told Schmitt.
The Republican governor and presidential candidate noted that Palestinians have rejected Israel’s offer of creating their own country because all they will accept is the elimination of the Jewish state.
“This will be the final battle with Hamas,” DeSantis predicted.
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Regarding Biden’s response, DeSantis noted that the Democratic president could be more forceful with Iran, which sponsors Hamas.
DeSantis said Biden could claw back the $6 billion in Iranian assets that he unfroze earlier this year and could hit the ayatollahs with new, tougher sanctions on Iran’s oil industry.
Biden, at the moment, is saying the right things, DeSantis acknowledged.
But. he added, “You know his left flank is going to get very upset as time goes on, and I think his commitment is probably gonna start to wilt.”
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