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Visiting Jerusalem, Ron DeSantis tries out his Jewish stump speech
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Ron DeSantis may not have declared that he’s running for president yet, but his incipient campaign was on full display Thursday at a conference in Jerusalem, where he ran down a laundry list of issues relevant to Israel and American Jews.
Most of the Florida governor’s remarks reflected what has become Republican orthodoxy in the post-Donald Trump era: He supports Israeli West Bank settlements as well as keeping Jerusalem under full Israeli control. He wants the United States to be more aggressive toward Iran’s nuclear program. He vehemently opposes the movement to boycott Israel.
And he declined to take a position on the Israeli government’s effort to sap the Israeli Supreme Court of much of its power — which President Joe Biden has repeatedly criticized as a danger to Israeli democracy.
“We must also, in America, respect Israel’s right to make its own decisions about its own governance,” he said. “You’re a smart country. You figure it out. It shouldn’t be for us to butt into these important issues.”.
He also pushed back at claims that his legislation has led to the banning of Holocaust books in his state, calling them “fake narratives” (though multiple Holocaust books have been banned). And, at a press conference, he signed a bill that aims to penalize antisemitic harassment. He also touted a new bill that gives vouchers worth thousands of dollars to parents who send their children to private schools.
“We’ve really seen a historic migration of American Jews and Israeli Americans moving to southern Florida,” he said. “It’s really, really boomed, and I think Florida’s policies have really reinforced that.”
DeSantis, who landed in Israel yesterday, was the keynote speaker at a conference on Thursday hosted by the Jerusalem Post at the Museum of Tolerance here. He received multiple standing ovations and cheers throughout the morning. At a press conference after his speech, some of his supporters sat among the journalists and clapped at his responses.
Israel is the latest on a four-stop international trip by DeSantis, who is expected to announce later this year that he will challenge former President Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination. On the trip, he is meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog and other officials. His trip also includes stops in Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom.
“If there’s any announcements, those will come at the appropriate time,” he said in response to a question about his potential candidacy.
In his speech, DeSantis described his past support for Israel, advocating for the 2018 move of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and, in 2019, holding a Florida cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. He also told the crowd that he baptized his children with water from the Sea of Galilee and said he put a note in the Western Wall asking God to protect Florida from hurricane season.
An affinity for the Bible also played a role in DeSantis’ position on the West Bank, which he called “disputed” rather than “occupied.” He referred to the territory by the term “Judea and Samaria,” which is the Israeli government’s standard term for the area and also emphasizes its place in the Bible. He spoke of visits to the northern West Bank settlement of Ariel, as well as to the City of David, a Jewish neighborhood and archaeological site in eastern Jerusalem.
“We visited the Biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria,” he said during his speech regarding a previous trip. Later, at the press conference, he said, “Those are the most historic Jewish lands there are, going back thousands and thousands of years.”
He also came out staunchly in favor of continued Israeli control of eastern Jerusalem, claiming that it is the best way to ensure religious freedom in the city. Palestinians aspire for the city’s eastern area to be the capital of a future Palestinian state.
“With Israeli sovereignty over the city of Jerusalem, people have the ability to practice their religion freely,” he said. “They have the ability to visit their sites freely. That would just actually not be true if that were in other hands.”
Although his Israel policies dovetail with those of Trump, and even though Trump’s Israel ambassador, David Friedman, was at the conference, DeSantis avoided saying the former president’s name in his speech, instead referring to “the previous administration.” He did say Trump’s name once during the press conference.
Following his speech, DeSantis announced partnerships with Israeli firms to develop tech products, and portrayed his state as an inviting home for Jews. He said the state had invested millions of dollars into synagogue security as well as Holocaust education. And he signed a bill that bans projecting threatening images on buildings without permission, as well as littering with the intent to intimidate.
Florida has seen an uptick recently in white supremacist activity. The Goyim Defense League, a far-right antisemitic group, relocated there last year. In October, several public spaces in Jacksonville displayed messages promoting the antisemitic ideas of rapper Kanye West. Neo-Nazis intimidated attendees at an Orlando-area Chabad center in February, and last week, police arrested a man for a March attack on a different Florida Chabad center.
“This is going to be able to provide more tools to be able to combat antisemitic activity,” DeSantis said. ״If you have a synagogue and someone shines a swastika-like image on that, they have a right to do the image for themselves, but putting it on someone else’s property, they’re defining that in this bill as a trespass.”
The signing of that bill, and DeSantis’ contention that he supports Holocaust education, comes as legislation he signed has enabled parents in the state to pursue bans of Holocaust literature. A South Florida school district library removed a Holocaust-themed novel by Jodi Picoult in March, and this month, a high school in the state removed a graphic novel adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary from its shelves.
Despite those instances and other bans parents are seeking, DeSantis claimed that there was no significant campaign to ban Holocaust books. He called that allegation the “book ban hoax.”
“Those are all fake narratives,” he said. “We’ve provided curriculum transparency for parents, to make sure that the curriculum used in school is transparent and to make sure everything is age appropriate and is not conflicting with Florida standards. And so, what parents have identified unfortunately are pornographic images in books.”
The legislation, which has targeted books about sexuality and gender, is at the center of DeSantis’ campaign to limit or ban discussion of those topics in schools. The law, called the “Parental Rights in Education” bill and dubbed by critics as the “Don’t say gay” bill, also bans discussion of LGBTQ topics between kindergarten and third grade, among other measures. It is one of a series of recent state laws limiting transgender rights.
That law is also at the center of DeSantis’ feud with Disney, the state’s largest employer, which just sued the governor for allegedly punishing the company for its criticism of the law. At the press conference, DeSantis said the suit is about Disney wanting “to be able to control things without proper oversight.”
DeSantis did not refer specifically to the Anne Frank graphic novel in his remarks, and said Florida had “beefed up” Holocaust education in the state. But a Jewish ally of his who accompanied him on the trip, Republican state Rep. Randy Fine, defended banning the book, which he called the “Anne Frank pornography book.”
“I read the diary of Anne Frank many times as a kid and I don’t remember any of that stuff that they put in that graphic novel,” Fine told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “And frankly that graphic novel is antisemitic. To sexualize the diary of Anne Frank in that sort of inappropriate way, it is antisemitic.”
When told that the passages, which are authentic and relate to Frank’s attraction to another girl as well as a description of her own genitalia, have been included in the diary for decades, Fine said that the graphic novel was inappropriate regardless because it depicted the passages in an image.
“It wasn’t just that the passages were in the book,” he said. “It was how they were visualized.”
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The post Visiting Jerusalem, Ron DeSantis tries out his Jewish stump speech appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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2 men found guilty in UK of plotting Islamic State-inspired antisemitic terror attack
Two men inspired by Islamic state ideology were convicted on Tuesday in Manchester, England, of plotting what prosecutors said could have been one of the deadliest antisemitic attacks in British history.
Walid Saadaoui, 38, and Amar Hussein, 52, were both found guilty of preparing terrorist acts between December 2023 and May 2024. Saadaoui’s brother, Bilel Saadaoui, 36, was found guilty of failing to disclose information about an act of terrorism.
Prosecutors told jurors that Saadaoui and Hussein had “embraced the views” of the Islamic State and had a “visceral dislike” of Jewish people.
By the time of his arrest in May 2024, following an undercover operation, Saadaoui had arranged the purchase and delivery of two assault rifles, an automatic pistol and almost 200 rounds of ammunition for the attack. The pair had planned to infiltrate a march against antisemitism in the Manchester city center before unleashing their attack.
“Walid Saadaoui and Amar Hussein intended to target members of the Jewish community in an evil act born out of hate and intolerance,” said Assistant Chief Constable Robert Potts, who is in charge of Counter-Terrorism Policing in northwest England, in a statement. “If they had been successful then what followed would have been devastating and potentially one of the deadliest terrorist attacks to ever take place on UK soil.”
The convictions come as threats associated with the Islamic State appear to be on the rise. Earlier this month, two men who authorities said were motivated by “Islamic State ideology” killed 15 people after opening fire on a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney.
In October on Yom Kippur, another man who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State carried out an attack on a Manchester synagogue during which two people were killed.
Last week, three Toronto men, including one with alleged links to ISIS, were arrested for allegedly attempting kidnappings targeting Jews and women.
Ken McCallum, the head of Britain’s domestic intelligence agency MI5, said in October that MI5 and British police had “disrupted 19 late-stage attack plots” since 2020.
“Al Qaeda and Islamic State are once again becoming more ambitious, taking advantage of instability overseas to gain firmer footholds,” said McCallum. “They are both personally encouraging and indirectly inciting would-be attackers in the West.”
Following the convictions Tuesday, the Anti-Defamation League called for “vigilance” from governments and local law enforcement.
“While some plots are thankfully thwarted, others are not, including the recent terror attack in Bondi Beach,” the ADL wrote in a post on X. “The threat of antisemitic terrorism is real and ongoing and vigilance by governments and law enforcement agencies is crucial to keep Jewish individuals and institutions safe globally.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post 2 men found guilty in UK of plotting Islamic State-inspired antisemitic terror attack appeared first on The Forward.
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Self-appointed chief rabbi of Saudi Arabia says he was denied entry at border
The self-appointed chief rabbi of Saudi Arabia, Rabbi Jacob Herzog, said he had been denied entry to the Gulf nation.
“With profound regret, I announce that I was barred from entering the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia upon arrival, despite holding a valid entry visa, and despite having spent a significant portion of the past years living and serving in this blessed Kingdom,” Herzog wrote Monday in a post on X.
While the country has no official Jewish community, Herzog has in recent years marketed himself as an emissary for the country’s small population of Jewish visitors and residents, a role that has put him at odds with a community accustomed to flying under the radar of the conservative state.
“This incident has left me — against my will — distant from the Jewish community that I serve with love within the Kingdom, a community that has lived under the spirit of peace and goodwill embodied by the Saudi royal system and the great Saudi people,” continued Herzog.
While Saudi Arabia typically does not allow Israeli passport holders entry to the country, the New York-born Herzog’s dual citizenship in the United States and Israel appears to have earned him leniency in his travels between his home base in Jerusalem and the kingdom.
Herzog’s rejection comes as relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel have been strained in recent months amid the fragile ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.
While President Donald Trump has repeatedly pushed for the country to enter a normalization agreement with Israel, Saudi leaders have remained steadfast that a path for Palestinian statehood is a key condition for entering any agreement.
“Saudi Arabia is not considering a normalization deal with Israel. Should Israel become a normal country with normal acceptance of international law, then Saudi Arabia will consider normalization,” Saudi Arabia’s former intelligence chief, Prince Turki bin Faisal, told the The Times of Israel on Sunday.
Herzog said that he did not receive any explanation for the decision from authorities at the airport or the country’s Ministry of Interior, but claimed he was “convinced that this measure did not emanate from the Royal Court or from the Saudi government itself.”
“Despite my complete trust in the integrity of Saudi institutions and the sound intentions of its leadership, I cannot ignore the possibility of the existence of dark forces seeking to obstruct the path of reform, openness, and tolerance that the Kingdom is pursuing with determination,” said Herzog.
The Saudi Arabian Ministry of Interior did not respond to requests for comment from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Herzog’s rejection.
While Herzog markets kosher foods at Saudi grocery stores and offers his services as a mohel on his website, Saudi Arabia legally forbids practicing religions other than Islam in public.
In March 2024, a U.S. government delegation on international religious freedom ended a visit in Saudi Arabia early after a rabbi on the trip was asked to remove his kippah while in public.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Self-appointed chief rabbi of Saudi Arabia says he was denied entry at border appeared first on The Forward.
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Coast Guard again retracts policy that would downgrade swastika as hate symbol, clearing path for new leader’s confirmation
After renewed objections from Jewish groups, the U.S. Coast Guard again removed language referencing a proposed policy that would have stopped classifying swastikas as hate symbols.
The retraction late Thursday, the second such reversal of the Coast Guard’s swastika policy, was enough to prompt Jewish Sen. Jacky Rosen to drop the hold she had placed on Admiral Kevin Lunday’s nomination to permanently lead the organization.
“While I continue to have reservations about the process by which this happened and the confusion created by leadership at the Department of Homeland Security, I am pleased to see that the policy now directly refers to stronger language against swastikas and nooses,” Rosen wrote on the social network X. A Democrat from Nevada, Rosen had placed the hold together with non-Jewish Democrat Tammy Duckworth, a military veteran.
Lunday was swiftly confirmed by voice vote late that evening, prior to the Senate’s adjournment for the holiday season.
Rosen wrote of Lunday, “I appreciate his lifetime of service to our country and look forward to working with him to continue to strengthen anti-harassment policy at the Coast Guard.”
The Coast Guard upset and confused many Jewish groups by issuing and then reversing statements about whether swastikas and nooses would still be considered hate symbols or downgraded to “potentially divisive.”
After The Washington Post reported in November that the downgrade was happening, the Coast Guard denied the reports and Lunday — then the acting head — reassured Jewish leaders the policy would not go through. He issued an explicit directive on the subject.
Yet last week the Post reported that the Coast Guard had gone ahead and made the change in its updated harassment manuals, triggering fierce backlash at a moment when other actions by President Donald Trump’s second administration have raised concerns about antisemitic sentiment.
Jewish leaders, including the heads of the Union for Reform Judaism’s advocacy center and Jewish War Veterans, questioned how such a policy could have gone through despite Lunday’s directive. Some told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that Lunday should not lead the Coast Guard if he was truly unaware of the policy change.
Yet Rosen appeared to feel differently after Lunday took additional steps Thursday. According to The Washington Post, Lunday issued a new directive to say the revisions involving swastikas and nooses had been “completely removed” from the policy manual. A copy of the manual itself now obscures the language with a large black bar.
In her statement lifting the hold on Lunday, Rosen added that, because she was still not satisfied with how the swastika issue was handled, she would be placing a hold on a different nomination: Sean Plankey, who had sought to lead the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, a component of the Department of Homeland Security.
“I will keep that hold in place until we see that this new policy works to protect our men and women in uniform from racist and antisemitic harassment,” Rosen wrote. Homeland Security also oversees the Coast Guard.
Plankey was not confirmed before the Senate adjourned, and his nomination would have to be renewed by Trump in the new year.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Coast Guard again retracts policy that would downgrade swastika as hate symbol, clearing path for new leader’s confirmation appeared first on The Forward.