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Ron DeSantis signs legislation to combat hate crimes while on trip to Israel
NBC News ^ | Gabe Gutierrez

Posted on 04/28/2023 5:29:30 PM PDT by jimwatx

JERUSALEM — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation cracking down on hate crimes Thursday morning after a high-profile speech in Israel.

Known as the “Public Nuisances” bill, the legislation — passed Wednesday by the Legislature — makes it a felony for hate groups to harass people for their religion or ethnicity. Florida had the fourth-highest number of antisemitic incidents last year, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

DeSantis is in Israel as part of his overseas trade mission with stops in Japan and South Korea. He also met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday before he wrapped up the global trip in the United Kingdom.

“He’s a friend of Israel,” Netanyahu said in an interview shortly after the meeting. “We talked about Iran. We talked about Israel-U.S. relations.”

DeSantis is preparing to join the 2024 presidential contest as soon as mid-May.

DeSantis visits Israel ahead of expected presidential run APRIL 27, 202303:33 DeSantis also signed a measure to combat antisemitism on a trip to Israel in 2019. It was aimed at preventing discrimination on the basis of religion in Florida public schools.

DeSantis addressed a packed auditorium in Jerusalem on Thursday morning at the Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem. The “Celebrate the Faces of Israel” conference comes the same week as the 75th anniversary of Israel’s independence. DeSantis, flanked by his wife, Casey, arrived to cheers in the standing-room-only auditorium.

“We must support Israel’s right to defend itself,” he told the friendly crowd.

DeSantis shared his often-told story about using water from the Sea of Galilee to baptize his children — and how people in Israel sent him some replacement holy water when staff members at the Governor’s Mansion mistakenly threw out a half-empty bottle.

He also stressed national security issues.

“Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons creates a risk like you’ve not seen in this region,” DeSantis said. “It’s an existential threat to the state of Israel and to the United States of America.”

DeSantis’ supposedly pro-business trade mission risks being overshadowed by a growing controversy back home: the dramatic escalation of his feud with Disney, which accused him of being anti-business and of orchestrating a “targeted campaign of government retaliation” in a new lawsuit.

Aside from the official state purposes of the trip to Israel, it also is a way to bolster his foreign policy credentials after he faced backlash for having called the war in Ukraine a “territorial dispute.” He later clarified his comments, calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal.”

Netanyahu is seen as a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump, who is running for a second term in 2024 and has been relentlessly attacking DeSantis over the past few months.

“We didn’t talk about American politics,” Netanyahu said in the interview Thursday. "I have enough politics here."

Netanyahu has been wary of being seen as interfering in U.S. elections before. In 2012, he denied having done so after a clip of him was featured in an ad for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Analysts don’t expect Israelis to signal a clear preference for either Trump or DeSantis — at least not yet.

“I imagine that every Israeli politician will try to stay out of it and try to say that both of them are friends of Israel,” said Jonathan Rynhold, the head of the political studies department at Bar-Ilan University. “Whether former President Trump lets Israeli politicians do that or not is another question, because he tends to see things in very personal terms.”

In 2017, DeSantis and other U.S. lawmakers traveled to Israel to tour possible sites to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. In his speech Thursday, he said he tried to “cajole” the previous administration to move the embassy. At the time, he met with Yehudah Glick, a Brooklyn-born rabbi and former Knesset member whom Palestinians see as a far-right lightning rod. He survived an assassination attempt in 2015 and later unsuccessfully ran for president.

In an interview ahead of DeSantis’ visit, Glick praised DeSantis’ family values and his support of moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. Trump ended up announcing the move later in 2017; Glick stressed he has no inside knowledge of whether DeSantis’ public advocacy played any role.

“Ron DeSantis was extremely active in trying to locate the exact place to put the embassy,” Glick said. “I was very impressed by how much he was devoted to it.”


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: desantis; freespeech; hatecrimes; rondesantis
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To: FreeReign

It looks to me like DeSantis is just pandering for votes. All politicians do it, and it’s always disgusting. For example, even Trump favors the awful use of ethanol in gasoline.

Why? Gotta get those corn farmer votes. To hell with the consequences down the road.


21 posted on 04/28/2023 5:53:18 PM PDT by Leaning Right (The steal is real.)
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To: jimwatx
Violent crimes against Jewish people, and other minority groups, are already against the law (Notice that whites getting the crap kicked out of them by blacks on a daily basis barely makes the news).

This anti-1st Amendment bill would punish those who make leaflets legitimately criticizing Jewish influence in our government and culture up to 5 years in prison.

It's time for the United States to decouple itself from Israel, as well as other nations such as China that have sway in our government.

Our government should only serve and exist for stock, Legacy Americans.

22 posted on 04/28/2023 5:53:22 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
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To: FreeReign

The issue is that the legislation is unconstitutional. Just because it could theoretically be applied to other religions is irrelevant.


23 posted on 04/28/2023 5:53:27 PM PDT by jimwatx
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To: ConservativeInPA

As the grandson of a Nazi who has met people affected by his actions, it registers with me.


24 posted on 04/28/2023 5:55:15 PM PDT by Fuzz (. )
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To: Leaning Right

I was very critical of Trump and his ethanol support going back to 2016.


25 posted on 04/28/2023 5:55:43 PM PDT by FreeReign
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To: jimwatx

Is it now illegal to speak against Christians? Or just Jews and Islam?


26 posted on 04/28/2023 5:56:10 PM PDT by Openurmind (The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world it leaves to its children. ~ D. Bonhoeffer)
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To: Leaning Right

The difference being Trump didn’t propose unconstitutional legislation to get those votes. DeSantis has no such qualms.


27 posted on 04/28/2023 5:56:22 PM PDT by jimwatx
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To: RushIsMyTeddyBear
He has a huge Jewish community in Florida.

So? What does that mean?

Has to make an impression.

No, he doesn't. He needs to focus on the concerns of Legacy Americans who continue to get screwed over by this rogue government, and not kiss the ring of the corrupt and anti-white Jonathan Greenblatt and the ADL (originally founded to exonerate a child rapist/pedophile that was posthumously pardoned) who are salivating over the idea of throwing innocent people who criticize them in prison.

(Rubbing of hairy hands intensifies)

28 posted on 04/28/2023 5:56:57 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
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To: Fuzz
As the grandson of a Nazi who has met people affected by his actions, it registers with me.

That's nice. Where's your concern over the children of Holodomor victims or the 50 million white Europeans slaughtered in WWII.

Leftist Jews use the Holocaust to hide behind just like blacks use slavery. I'm sick and tired of it, and I'm not playing that game anymore.

29 posted on 04/28/2023 5:59:12 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
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To: jimwatx
Yes, as I already said in my first post to you.

All crimes are hate crimes. There should be no special protections for some crime victims.

30 posted on 04/28/2023 5:59:18 PM PDT by FreeReign
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To: Openurmind

People say hateful things all the time about Christians and nobody bats an eye because they say it’s “free speech”.


31 posted on 04/28/2023 5:59:42 PM PDT by jimwatx
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To: jimwatx

And that is the problem with this law. It is going to be enforced selectively.


32 posted on 04/28/2023 6:01:13 PM PDT by Openurmind (The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world it leaves to its children. ~ D. Bonhoeffer)
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To: jimwatx
Trump Calls for Death Penalty for Hate Crimes
33 posted on 04/28/2023 6:04:22 PM PDT by Drew68 (Ron DeSantis for President 2024. A real conservative.)
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To: jimwatx

Yet, Trump supporters are blaming DeSantis for doing it?


34 posted on 04/28/2023 6:04:48 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist

May you find peace.


35 posted on 04/28/2023 6:08:07 PM PDT by Fuzz (. )
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To: Drew68

Does context mean anything to you? When Trump is referring to hate crimes here he’s talking about people like that guy in Buffalo who shot up all those black people at the supermarket. DeSantis’s legislation is against speech alone.


36 posted on 04/28/2023 6:08:51 PM PDT by jimwatx
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To: Openurmind

“Is it now illegal to speak against Christians?”
**************************************************

2019’s HB 741 bans any speech in the public school systems of Florida deemed to be “making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations” about Jews or “the power of Jews as a collective,” such as “the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.”

HB 741 also bans “applying a double standard to Israel by requiring behavior of Israel that is not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation, or focusing peace or human rights investigations only on Israel.”

The bill also adds religion as a protected class to the state’s anti-discrimination laws, but its language pertaining specifically to criticism of Israel are unlike any speech code in law throughout the United States today.

No mention of Christianity in that bill. This could only be by design. They intentionally omitted it.


37 posted on 04/28/2023 6:21:47 PM PDT by jimwatx
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To: jimwatx

Of course they did.


38 posted on 04/28/2023 6:26:13 PM PDT by Openurmind (The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world it leaves to its children. ~ D. Bonhoeffer)
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To: jimwatx

He’s here, he’s there, he’s every f*******-where!


39 posted on 04/28/2023 6:59:59 PM PDT by Arkady
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To: jimwatx

What is unconstitutional about this bill?


40 posted on 04/28/2023 7:02:36 PM PDT by thefactor
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