Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL), a 2024 presidential candidate, said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that he believed every Republican candidate should pledge not to “accept people from Gaza into this country as refugees.”
Partial transcript as follows:
DESANTIS: We cannot accept people from Gaza into this country as refugees. I am not going to do that. If you look at how they behave, not all of them are Hamas, but they are all antisemitic.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I’m sure you know all Arabs are Semites. But how can you paint with such a broad brush to say 2.3 million people are antisemitic?
DESANTIS: Well, first of all, my position is very clear. Those Gaza refugees, Palestinian Arabs, should go to Arab countries. The US should not be absorbing any of those. I think the culture, so, they elected Hamas. Let’s just be clear about that. Not everyone’s a member of Hamas, most probably aren’t, but they did elect Hamas.
BRENNAN: In 2006. And then the military occupation happened after that, where they went in and haven’t allowed elections since 2007.
DESANTIS: Let me finish. Let me finish.
BRENNAN: So in 2006, there was an election.
DESANTIS: I know, but there was a lot of celebrating of those attacks in the Gaza Strip by a lot of those folks who are not Hamas. But if you look at their education system, this has been an issue for a long time. They teach kids to hate Jews. The textbooks do not have Israel even on the map. They prepare very young kids to commit terrorist attacks. So, I think it’s a toxic culture. And I think if we were to import large numbers of those to the United States, I think it would increase antisemitism in this country, and I think it would increase anti-Americanism in this country. And that’s something, after seeing those demonstrations pop up in our country, just with blood still flowing amongst Israeli citizens over the weekend, you had people taking to the streets cheering on the barbarism of Hamas in our own country. That was a chilling thing to see. And I don’t think that that’s something that we should ever think is acceptable.
BRENNAN: No, but no one’s talking about getting Gazan refugees here right now. They can’t even get out of Gaza at the moment.
DESANTIS: Well, people have mentioned it. I think some of the far left have said this is something that we should do. The US has done similar things in the past. And so, I just put my stake in the ground. That’s where we’re going to be, and I think that everyone running for president on the Republican side should follow suit.
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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