Max Greenwood is the Miami Herald’s senior political correspondent. A Florida native, he covered campaigns at The Hill from both Washington, D.C. and Florida for six years before joining the Herald in 2023.
DeSantis says Iran culpable in attack on Israel, proposes new Florida sanctions
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday that he plans to roll out new sanctions against Iran during Florida’s upcoming legislative session, adopting the disputed position that the theocratic regime in Tehran was “involved in orchestrating” a terror attack over the weekend in Israel in which Hamas militants killed hundreds, including more than a dozen Americans.
Speaking at a Surfside synagogue, DeSantis placed blame for Hamas’ brutality in Israel squarely on the government in Tehran and called on other U.S. states to harden economic penalties against Iran in an effort to choke off funding to Hamas and other militant groups in the region.
“We need justice and I think the justice needs to be so severe that they won’t think about doing this ever, ever again,” DeSantis said, standing in the Shul of Bal Harbour behind a sign that read “Stand with Israel, Sanction Iran.”
DeSantis said the forthcoming legislation — intended to show support for Israel — would expand prohibitions on state investment in Iranian businesses to include nearly a dozen sectors, ranging from finance and technology to construction and shipbuilding. It would also ban state and local governments from contracting with companies on that expanded sectors list.
All federal sanctions against Iran would have to be lifted before Florida removed its proposed penalties against Iran.
The announcement came days after Hamas militants launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing civilians and taking hostages in a wave of violence that has sparked concerns about a regional conflict. Militants entered residential communities and descended on a music festival, where they left more than 250 attendees dead.
Israel launched retaliatory attacks on Gaza and declared war.
The fighting has so far killed more than 1,500 people on both sides. Speaking from the White House on Tuesday following a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Joe Biden said that at least 14 Americans have been killed in the attacks on Israel and that U.S. citizens are among the hostages being held by Hamas.
“The brutality of Hamas — this blood-thirstiness brings to mind the worst rampages of ISIS,” Biden said, referring to the Islamic State group, a militant organization that has terrorized large swaths of the Middle East for years. “This is terrorism.”
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said at a Tuesday press briefing that there are at least 20 Americans who are currently missing, but cautioned that that doesn’t necessarily mean that all those Americans are hostages.
Iran is designated by the U.S. government as a state sponsor of terrorism and has helped Hamas in the past, providing funding, weapons and training to its paramilitary force, according to a 2021 U.S. State Department report.
The Wall Street Journal has reported that Iran helped to plot the attack, but a spokesperson for Iran’s foreign ministry denied Tehran’s involvement and a top Hamas official told The Associated Press on Monday that that neither Iran nor the Lebanese Hezbollah played a role.
“Yes, Iran was involved in orchestrating this attack against Israel,” DeSantis said. “We know that. It’s been reported. They deny it, but we’re smarter than that.”
Sullivan reiterated on Tuesday that the U.S. did not have any evidence linking Iran to the attack on Israel, but said that officials would continue to look into the matter. He said that Iran was “complicit” in the attacks, because of the funding, training and support that Tehran had provided to Hamas over the years.
“As I stand here today, while Iran plays this broad role — sustained, deep and dark role — in providing all this support and capabilities to Hamas, in terms of this particular gruesome attack on Oct. 7, we don’t currently have that information,” he said.
Sullivan also said that the U.S. had begun surging military assistance to Israel and was moving a U.S. aircraft carrier into the eastern Mediterranean Sea as a warning to adversaries that might seek to take advantage of the war.
“Let me be clear: we did not move the carrier for Hamas,” Sullivan said. “We moved the carrier to send a clear message of deterrence to other state or non-state actors that might seek to widen this war.”
Many Republicans — including DeSantis, who’s also seeking the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination — have criticized Biden and his administration for taking what they say is a weak stance against Iran. DeSantis accused the Biden administration on Tuesday of easing sanctions on Iran and cast himself as a counterweight to the president.
“Now is the time for leadership. Now is the time for the president to be out there and talking about how important it is to be unified in the face of terrorism,” DeSantis said, calling Iran the “clearing house for terrorist financing” in the Middle East.
The war between Israel and Hamas is the latest in more than seven decades of tensions and violence. The conflict has long posed one of the most difficult foreign policy and security challenges for the United States and other world powers.
The central formula proposed for resolving the conflict has been a two-state solution that would create both an independent Israeli state and independent Palestinian state, though the exact contours of such a proposal are the subjects of intense disputes.
The U.S. has long endorsed a two-state solution, with John Kirby, the National Security Council’s coordinator for strategic communications, reaffirming the Biden administration’s commitment to such a solution during a Tuesday interview on CBS.
DeSantis, for his part, rejected the notion of a two-state solution in an interview with the conservative outlet Newsmax on Monday, saying that extremism within Palestinian society had effectively made it impossible for the two states to coexist.
Florida Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez, who joined DeSantis at Tuesday’s news conference in Surfside, echoed that sentiment.
“There are no two sides on this issue. There simply can be no willingness to concede,” she said. “There is no two-state solution that we will ever accept, and if you are capitulating or providing a justification, you too are part of the problem.”
This story was originally published October 10, 2023, 11:40 AM.