From BDS to Settlements: Where DeSantis Stands on Israel and the Jewish Community - U.S. News - Haaretz.com
WASHINGTON – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to officially launch his presidential campaign in the coming days.
Long presumed to be Donald Trump’s main competitor on the path to the 2024 Republican nomination, he recently visited Israel as part of an international tour meant to bolster his foreign bona fides. He has long used his pro-Israel standing as a key tenet of his policies.
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He is widely expected to use his Israel record to outflank Trump on the right – a tall order given Trump’s claims to have done more for Israel than any other president in U.S. history.
Here are seven things to know about DeSantis and his record on Israel and the Jewish community.
1. Israel most valued foreign ally?
Prior to his most recent trip, DeSantis visited Israel three times as a member of Congress and once as governor (the sum total of his official foreign visits, as reported by The New York Times). Several of these trips, and his support for Israel at large, are deeply rooted in his Christianity.
These visits have helped lead DeSantis to embody the Republican Party’s rightward shift on Israel. He is regarded as among the party’s most ardent supporters of Israel – and defenders against the country’s critics – since his time in the House. This includes a notable January 2017 House speech calling for the United States to defund the United Nations until the UN Security Council revoked a resolution condemning Israeli settlements as a violation of international law. In his speech in Jerusalem in April, he referred to Jerusalem as "The eternal and indivisible capital of the Jewish people."
2. Nudging Trump rightward on Israel
DeSantis has long sought to establish himself to Trump’s right on Israel, including visiting potential U.S. Embassy locations in Jerusalem and criticizing the then-president several months later for failing to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem (this was six months prior to Trump’s landmark decision). During his recent Israel visit, DeSantis remarked that he had to “cajole” Trump to make the move.
He also pushed Trump to recognize Israel’s authority over the Golan Heights, which Trump would eventually do two weeks prior to Israel’s April 2019 election.
He was also a vocal critic of Trump’s efforts at reaching “the deal of the century” between Israel and the Palestinians. Addressing last year’s Republican Jewish Coalition confab, DeSantis cited his record fighting short-term homestay firm Airbnb after it temporarily delisted 200 properties in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. He also rejected describing “Judea and Samaria as occupied territory,” instead calling the West Bank “disputed territory,” while calling for public events to be held there.
This may be all the more relevant as the primary heats up, given DeSantis’ warm relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump’s reported falling-out with the Israeli premier.
President Donald Trump, left, shaking hands with Ron DeSantis during a Florida rally in 2018.Credit: Chris O'Meara / AP
3. A favorite of the GOP-Jewish establishment
The Florida governor received perhaps the loudest ovation at last year’s Republican Jewish Coalition annual confab in Las Vegas, held days after the GOP’s disappointing performance in the midterm elections.
To rapturous applause, DeSantis highlighted how his showing in the midterms was a national outlier, securing record margins with Hispanic voters and sweeping suburbs throughout his state. He described Florida as a “blueprint for success,” noting: “We’re all about exercising leadership and delivering results for the people that we represent.”
The governor notably stressed how he received the highest Jewish vote share of any Republican candidate in the state’s history. This love from the top was only confirmed during his Israel visit, when he sat between Republican megadonors Miriam Adelson and Larry Mizel at a dinner in Jerusalem.
4. At the forefront of anti-BDS movement
Florida has been one of the most aggressive states to combat the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel. Although this predates DeSantis, he has subsequently taken that BDS policy to new heights.
After Ben and Jerry’s moved to stop selling ice cream in the occupied territories, he called on the State Board of Administration to “immediately place Ben & Jerry’s and Unilever on the Continued Examination Companies that Boycott Israel List and initiate the process to place both companies on the Scrutinized Companies that Boycott Israel List.”
5. Leaving Florida Jews split
As mentioned, DeSantis received the highest share of Jewish votes of any Republican candidate in Florida’s history. Much of this can be traced back to his legislation expanding Florida’s school choice program, providing vouchers worth thousands of dollars to parents who send their children to private schools. Orthodox Jewish organizations and many Florida Jews, who send their children to Jewish day schools at among the highest rates in America, lauded him for the legislation.
Others, however, deeply disagree with DeSantis’ position on abortion, with many rank-and-file voters and significant donors alike being alienated by his signing a six-week abortion ban into law last month. Forty percent of Jewish voters cited abortion as the key issue that motivated them during the midterms.
According to last year’s Jewish Electorate Institute poll, 71 percent of Jews opposed Florida’s voting laws impacting access to voting and changing the way elections are conducted.
His targeting of the LGBTQ community – including through his “Don’t Say Gay” legislation that has targeted drag shows, providing gender-affirming health care to transgender minors, unisex bathrooms and early education – also contradicts the stance of many Jewish voters.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaking during an Election Night party in Tampa last November.Credit: GIORGIO VIERA - AFP
6. Tough on Antisemitism and on Holocaust books
During his Israel visit, DeSantis signed into law a hate crimes bill stemming from a surge in antisemitic incidents from far-right white supremacists, with such instances more than doubling in frequency between 2020 and 2022.
DeSantis has flagged this most recent legislation, alongside millions of dollars invested into synagogue security and Holocaust education, as evidence that he takes antisemitism seriously.
Florida requires Holocaust education at all grades and DeSantis signed a law requiring public schools to certify that they teach about the Holocaust. These claims, however, come amid controversies relating to Holocaust and heavily Jewish-themed books getting swept up in DeSantis’ crackdown on supposedly inappropriate classroom materials.
DeSantis’ “K-12 Education” measure passed earlier this year empowers parents to challenge and remove instructional materials and books they don’t like from school libraries. Parents in Florida have filed challenges that have led to the temporary or permanent removal of Holocaust literature on the grounds that they are inappropriate for children.
He has also been at the forefront of invoking George Soros and his supposed part in controlling politicians and prosecutors, as well as invoking the term “Zuckerbucks” – both of which have been flagged by experts as propagating antisemitism.
7. Jews caught up in ‘war on woke’
DeSantis’ most notable law, the so-called Stop WOKE Act, bans educators from making students feel guilt regarding historical events. Another passed bill that he has yet to sign into law forbids state-funded higher education institutions from teaching “critical theory” – which many fear could significantly affect the teaching of Jewish studies.
Among the books to be caught in the cross fire include a graphic novel adaptation of Anne Frank’s “The Diary of a Young Girl,” Jodi Picoult’s “The Storyteller,” as well as books about Shabbat and a Purim book about a Jewish family. Other tomes rejected include two new Holocaust-focused textbooks, while a middle-school social studies textbook was forced to alter a reference to the Hebrew Bible.
DeSantis has rejected such criticisms as “fake narratives” while deeming the allegations the “book ban hoax.” He stated that parents have identified and flagged pornographic images in flagged books.