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The Verity Courier
DeSantis Future
By Ron Estes
7 September 2022
In
December 2017, President Trump announced that the U.S. would recognize
Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and ordered the planning of the
relocation of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the decision and praised the
announcement.
President
Trump wasn’t alone, his decision to move the Embassy had a zealous
supporter, Florida Republican Congressman Ron DeSantis, who had been
pushing the issue for several years.
Congressman
DeSantis, from Ponte Vedra Beach, then introduced a bill to have
Congress declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel and to seek to move the
United States Embassy there by the beginning of 2019.
DeSantis
had introduced similar bills in the past and this one, labeled “The
Recognition of Jerusalem as the Capital of the State of Israel Act,” was
aimed at supporting and reinforcing Trump’s declaration. It stated that
it would be U.S. policy to recognize Jerusalem as the undivided capital
of Israel, and it expressed the sense of Congress that the President
shall relocate the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem by January 1,
2019.
DeSantis,
who took office as the Governor of Florida in January 2019, promised to
be “the most pro-Israel governor in America,” and declared Israel to be
“the only democracy in the Middle East.” DeSantis has kept the
promise.
The
United States was the first country to recognize Jerusalem as the
capital of Israel. That’s because UNGA 181, the resolution under whose
aegis Israel declared independence, declared Jerusalem to be an
independent city, corpus separatum, to be administered by the UN.
Israel occupies the city illegally, and therefore does not hold
sovereignty in the city. The U. S. was also the first nation in the
world to relocate its Embassy in the city.
There were many in Washington at the time, who questioned what benefit that policy decision brought the United States.
To
criticism that the policy decision, and DeSantis support of it,
buttressed Israeli national security interests, while sacrificing the
national security interests of the Unted States, DeSantis declared
“America must do the right thing regardless of the consequences." Many
in the halls of Congress and federal agencies, asked,”why?” What is the
right thing? Don’t U.S. national security interests come first to loyal
Americans? Florida voters are being inveigled to vote for a politician
whose dedication to U.S, national security interests has been
challenged. The Trump decision to recognize Jerusalem alienated 1.9
billion Muslims. Did that serve U.S. national security interests?
Americans well-remember the 2001 Muslim 9/11 attack launched because of
U.S. support for the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory. The
attack killed more Americans than the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
DeSantis
doesn’t hesitate to attribute positive characteristics to the state of
Israel that don’t fit. An example is his comment that Israel is“the only
democracy in the Middle East.” The statement is false, Lebanon and
Tunisia are Parliamentary Democracies, and Jordan and Morocco are
Constitutional Monarchies modeled after the 12 Monarchies in Europe.
It
would arouse many concerns if the governor who vowed to be “the most
pro-Israel governor in America,” were given the opportunity to declare
himself the most pro-Israel President in our history.
Somehow
during his years in Congress, DeSantis failed to learn from the many
foreign affairs professionals he would have encountered, the conviction
that our relationship with Israel adversely affects our strategic
interests in the Middle East.
Ron Estes served 25 years as an Operations Officer in the CIA Clandestine Service.
