DeSantis Sends Florida Weapons To Israel, As He Openly Admits To Taking Away 1st Amendment Rights On Campuses Who Speak Badly About Israel
“Well, you know you may have a First Amendment right to say a lot of dumb things, but you do not have the right to give material support to terrorists."
Yesterday, I reported on how a Florida student was recently arrested for making a joke associated with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, and now she faces a significant time in prison if found guilty.
I also noted how the state of Florida has passed several bills that criminalize “antisemitism” under a broad definition.
Unfortunately, I completely forgot to mention that Governor Ron DeSantis in 2024 bragged about taking away First Amendment rights on college campuses in a room full of Jewish and Israeli lobbyists — something I reported on at the time.
I have republished excerpts of that report below, and I have added it to the original report I did on the Florida student.
The following was first published on November 4th, 2023, on winepressnews.com.
Ron DeSantis, Florida Governor and Republican candidate for the 2024 Presidential election, has recently decided to assert executive authority as Governor to provide weapons to Israel while at the same time cracking down pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel speech on college campuses.
Jeremy Redfern, a spokesperson for DeSantis, explained last week that the state is sending cargo planes with healthcare supplies, drones, body armor and helmets, along with an undisclosed number of weapons and ammunition that were privately funded, including some drones.
But there were some contradictions in the story. As the Associated Press reported, ‘The governor’s office said it acted at the request of Israel’s consul general in Miami. Maor Elbaz-Starinsky, the consul general, initially said Thursday he did not request drones, body armor or helmets, nor had he talked to the governor about help getting weapons or ammunition through private parties.’
The AP added: ‘Elbaz-Starinsky said later Thursday that others in the Israeli government had communicated with DeSantis’ office to determine what would be sent to Israel.’
Days later, Elbaz-Starinsky provided some clarity, the Miami Herald reported. Elbaz-Starinsky noted that the party needed approval from the Transportation Security Administration, stating:
“They asked me to help. I approached a few contacts, including the governor’s office, to get the final approval. It went through all the process. I’m not even sure, at the end of the day, which one untangled this thing and made the shipment be approved.
“The stakeholders who did the shipment upon the request of Israel had all of the approvals needed to send the shipment, and they were just missing the final approval.
“Usually I don’t get involved in these things, but it was really the first days of the war, everyone was panicked and stressed — everything was urgent.”
‘When pressed for more details, Redfern declined to disclose the private parties or specify what the federal hurdles had been,’ the Herald wrote. He eventually did reveal that the the Florida government did not purchase the weapons and ammunition, and that those items “were transported separately” to Israel, without providing details on the transportation to get them them or means of funding.
‘An initial shipment of medical equipment and protective vests donated to Israel by U.S. citizens was also sent last week on two cargo planes funded by the state of Florida,’ the paper wrote.
The Miami Herald reported:
The secrecy surrounding how the weapons were acquired and shipped comes as the DeSantis administration has also been slow to provide information about how much the state has spent to rescue hundreds of U.S. citizens from Israel to the United States and which vendors were involved in the rescue operations. The Florida Division of Emergency Management on Thursday – nearly two weeks after the first rescue flight arrived in Florida — said that the rescue flights are expected to cost Florida taxpayers approximately $32 million.
First Ban On Pro-Palestinian Speech
On top of pledging to send weapons and foreign aid to Israel, DeSantis has enacted the country’s first impediment on speech concerning pro-Palestinian groups on state universities.
The State University System of Florida issued a statement that Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), whose leading body endorsed Hamas, was forced to be dismantled per statewide “crackdown.” The group was active at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville and Florida State University in Tallahassee.
“Based on the National SJP’s support of terrorism, in consultation with Governor DeSantis, the student chapters must be deactivated,” the system’s Chancellor Ray Rodrigues wrote in a letter to university leaders.
DeSantis also bragged about this during a speech at the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) Annual Leadership Summit on October 28th.
“Well, you know you may have a First Amendment right to say a lot of dumb things, but you do not have the right to give material support to terrorists, so we deactivated the Students of Justice in Palestine in the state of Florida, it’s done!,” DeSantis proclaimed.
The Intelligencer explained where DeSantis got his justification to enact this order, which he asserts this movement is directly tied to Hamas itself — which was based on a lone statement in the chapter’s toolkits, which read: “We as Palestinian students in exile are PART of this movement” — meaning Hamas and affiliated terror organizations — “not in solidarity with this movement.”
‘DeSantis uses this line to treat SJP as literally part of Hamas, as if its members were themselves going to carry out terrorist attacks,’ the Intelligencer notes. But the outlet explains SJP is not advocating for what DeSantis claims they are. Their documents go on to encourage members to take: “Table/Flyer on campus,” “Teach-ins,” “Sign onto statement from Bears for Palestine,” “Write a local statement of solidarity,” “Share within your network/region,” and “Help spread the word by sharing widely on your campuses and in your communities.” And it defines the Palestinian struggle as taking place “within historic Palestine,” which means Israel proper and the occupied territories. There is nothing within the chapter’s guidance that explicitly or implicitly endorses violence.
Howbeit, to clarify, the Intelligencer does note that “free speech often protects people with awful beliefs, and the beliefs promoted by SJP are genuinely horrific.”
The Intelligencer argued, adding that DeSantis’ edict will most likely fail in court:
The reasoning DeSantis employs to close down SJP could be used to shut down almost any student group — or any political group at all. If they support abortion rights, you could say they advocate murder. If they support Trump, you could say they endorse violent authoritarianism.
DeSantis’s brand of authoritarianism is nonviolent, but this comes as little comfort. The hallmark of his governing style has been to use the powers of government to crush political enemies without any concern for democratic rights. He held up his crude retaliation against Disney for having the temerity to make a statement opposing one of his policies as a model for his plans as president to intimidate the opposition. His “Stop WOKE” law has already been struck down as a First Amendment violation. And his education agenda has revolved around naked partisan control of both primary and higher education, seeking to turn schools into propaganda factories.
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
My apologies for forgetting to add this to my original report, but I think it is still pertinent to talk about.
Proverbs 4:27 Turn not to the right hand nor to the left: remove thy foot from evil.
The problem with talking about this stuff is that immediately this Hegelian Dialectic stuff is used to pigeonhole people into two camps, right or left, this team or that team. The fact is, I certainly do not defend, condone or support Hamas, nor am I on “Team Iran,” just as I am not a cheerleader for the current nation state of Israel for a number of reasons.
But Americans and people around the world have become so used to speech suppression and surveillance that incrementally taking away more and more of it has become normalized to most people and professing Christians — until, of course, they are directly affected by proxy and are in the crosshairs, and then they will whine and cry when it does and no one bother to listen or care.
Proverbs 21:13 Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard.
‘Oh, but Jacob, what about this? What about that? You don’t support [____] do you?’
DeSantis himself is no 'good guy’ here. He too has kissed the wall in Israel at different times, and before Governor was a bully man for the military industrial complex, participating in the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
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I feel like you do, Jacob. I am on the side of right vs wrong regardless of who is doing the speaking. DeSantis was a wolf in sheep's clothing during Convid, and now his true "fruit" is coming out...just like with Trump. Trump was a wolf in sheep's clothing during his first term to get everyone on his side, and now look at him. They are now both on the WRONG side, and apparently they don't seem to care now what people think of them. The mask's are off.
florida isn't the only red state fueling the genocidal israeli aggression. alabama just increased their holdings of israeli bonds by 17% late last year. it took a FOIA to find this out. stands to reason that other states may be quietly doing the same