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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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Romanians Stabbed Journalist in London at Behest of Iran, UK Court Told
People walk past a mural depicting the late leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and the late Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Tehran, Iran. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
A team of Romanian men, acting as proxies for the Iranian government, carried out a knife attack on a journalist working for a Persian-language media organization in London, prosecutors told a British court on Monday.
Pouria Zaratifoukolaei, known as Pouria Zeraati, a British journalist of Iranian origin who works for Iran International, was stabbed in the leg three times as he was attacked near his home in Wimbledon, southwest London, in March 2024.
At the start of the trial of two of the three men accused of carrying out the stabbing, prosecutor Duncan Atkinson said they had targeted Zeraati, whose Saudi-funded TV employer is critical of Iran‘s government and has been designated a terrorist organization by Tehran.
‘DELIBERATE, PLANNED VIOLENCE’
“This was no robbery, no fight that got out of control, it was deliberate, planned violence to achieve what it did, that is serious injury to its target,” Atkinson told London‘s Woolwich Crown Court.
They had “committed a planned attack preceded by reconnaissance, and which was ordered by a third party acting on behalf of the Iranian state,” the prosecutor said.
Iran has denied any involvement in the incident.
Nandito Badea, 21, and George Stana, 25, both deny charges of wounding with intent and unlawful wounding. The third man accused of involvement, David Andrei, was arrested in Romania but is not involved in the trial.
Atkinson said Zeraati was an “obvious and readily identifiable target for violence to be inflicted by proxies” acting for Iran. He said posters had been put up in Tehran in November 2022 featuring pictures of journalists including Zeraati, under the heading “Wanted: dead or alive.”
“In recent years, since 2005, the Islamic Republic has turned less to its own operatives and increasingly to use proxies such as criminal gangs to meet their threatened violence on their behalf,” Atkinson said.
“That has included attacks on persons in this country who have become targets of Iranian intimidation and, effectively, terror.”
Atkinson said Zeraati had been subject to “extensive reconnaissance,” and a year before Stana had been arrested in the garden of his apartment with another man, in possession of latex gloves, scissors, and a mask.
On the day of the attack, Badea and Andrei confronted Zeraati as he crossed the street from his home to his car, the prosecutor said. Andrei held him, while Badea stabbed him at the top of his thigh before they fled to a getaway car driven by Stana, the prosecutor added.
The men, who were motivated by money, dumped the car and some clothing, and then took a taxi to Heathrow Airport from where they flew to Geneva, Atkinson said.
The trial, which is expected to last more than two weeks, continues.
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‘Beyond Ironic’: Mamdani’s ‘Nakba’ Video Features Non-Arab Woman Critics Say Has European Roots
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) speaking with the press in the Bronx, New York City, May 18, 2026. Photo: Michael Brochstein/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani marked the Palestinian “Nakba” with an official City Hall video featuring a woman presented as a survivor of Israel’s founding war, but critics quickly identified her family as “European settlers” from Bosnia who left Arab-controlled territory.
The backlash came as leaders of mainstream Jewish groups said they would reject invitations to Mamdani’s “Jewish Heritage” celebration at Gracie Mansion on Monday evening.
The video, posted on Friday, features New York resident Inea Bushnaq, identified as a “Nakba survivor,” recounting her family’s departure from their home because, as she termed it, “the Zionists were coming into Jerusalem.”
Nakba is Arabic for “catastrophe,” a term Palestinians use for Israel’s founding and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Arabs during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence. The Palestinian demand for a “right of return” for the refugees’ millions of descendants is viewed by many Israelis and Jews as a call that would end Israel’s existence by demographic means. Critics said the video’s assertion that the Nakba “continues to this day” echoed that position.
Text in the video says the Nakba refers to the “expulsion and displacement of more than 700,000 Palestinians between 1947 and 1949 during the creation of the State of Israel” and says Israel’s pre-state militaries, “the Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi militias, among others, destroyed more than 400 Palestinian villages and cities, killing thousands of Palestinians and carrying out dozens of massacres.”
“May 15 is the annual commemoration of the Nakba. For Palestinians, their displacement and the Nakba continue to this day,” the video text reads.
The video makes no mention of Arab attacks on Jews before and during the 1948 war, the invasion by Arab armies after Israel’s declaration of independence meant to eradicate the nascent state, the rejection of the UN partition plan that would have created a Jewish and an Arab state, or the expulsion of Jews from parts of Jerusalem that came under Jordanian control.
Speaking in a British accent in the video, Bushnaq, who is described as Palestinian-American, explains how keys have become a Palestinian symbol of the right to return. “You have the key but not the house,” she says.
Tom Gross, a Middle East expert, noted that the video omitted the expulsion of Jews from Arab countries while relying on what he called a flawed account of Palestinian history.
“Not only does Mamdani’s video fail to mention the numerically greater 850,000 Jews driven out of their homes in the Arab world; he can’t even get his narrative right regarding the so-called Palestinian Nakba,” he told The Algemeiner.
In a post shared widely on social media, Gross cited research by the historian and influencer who posts as J0sh_a to challenge Bushnaq’s portrayal as a Palestinian refugee.
“It turns out that the ‘Nakba Survivor’ who stars in Mayor Mamdani’s official NY City Hall Palestinian propaganda video yesterday, is literally a ‘European settler,’” the post said.
Bushnaq’s grandparents were Muslim Bosnians who left Bosnia for Ottoman Syria in the late 19th century after Austria-Hungary took control of Bosnia. The family later moved to Tulkarem, which came under Jordanian control after 1948, not Israeli control. Bushnaq was born in Jerusalem because of the city’s medical facilities, but her family remained based in Tulkarem, the post said.
Bushnaq’s father worked in England in the 1930s, returned to what was then known as Mandatory Palestine under British administration, and then in 1948 the family chose to go back to England.
“They were not expelled, and no one forced them to move to England. In any case, Tulkarem, and the old city of Jerusalem remained under Jordanian Arab control. No Arabs were forced to leave from Tulkarem in 1948,” Gross wrote.
“So, in summary, this is a European with no strong roots in the land of Israel, whose family made the decision to immigrate back to the continent of their grandparents instead of remaining under Arab control in what was part of Jordan after 1948.”
Critics also pointed to a poster seen on Bushnaq’s wall in the video. The “Visit Palestine” image was not Palestinian nationalist artwork, they said, but a Zionist-era tourism poster designed by Jewish artist Franz Kraus to encourage travel to the Holy Land.
“It is beyond ironic that the only person featured to represent Palestinian Arabs in his video appears to be someone from a recently arrived European settler family – from Bosnia – and not Arab at all,” he told The Algemeiner.
Gross also argued that Bushnaq’s family story pointed to a wider part of the history often left out of Palestinian nationalist accounts, saying many Arab families in the land in 1948 had arrived within a generation or two, drawn by British rule or by economic opportunities created by Jewish development. He cited surnames such as Al-Masri and Masarwa, both linked to Egypt, Fayumi, from Fayum in Egypt, Ismaili, from Ismailia, Al-Horani, from Hauran in Syria, Sidawi, from Sidon in Lebanon, and Al-Hijazi, from the Hijaz in Saudi Arabia.
Jewish groups, leaders and members of Congress slammed the post.
The UJA-Federation of New York accused Mamdani of leaving out critical context, writing on X that “the refugees you post about exist because 22 Arab states launched a war to destroy Israel,” after rejecting the UN plan that also called for a Palestinian state.
Mayor Mamdani: the refugees you post about exist because 22 Arab states launched a war to destroy Israel on May 15, 1948—rejecting the UN plan that also called for a Palestinian state. In its aftermath, 800,000 Jews were expelled from Arab lands. Your post mentions none of this. https://t.co/Fn1aY788Tc
— UJA-Federation of New York (@UJAfedNY) May 15, 2026
Referencing the translation of Nakba, US Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) wrote on X, “The only catastrophe here is a mayor of New York who lets antisemitic mobs run wild to terrorize law-abiding Jewish New Yorkers while he spreads anti-Israel propaganda.”
“Rewriting history to portray the existence of Israel itself as the original sin is not education or remembrance. It is propaganda,” said New York Assemblymember Sam Berger. “This mayor constantly tries to market himself as an ally to the Jewish community while amplifying narratives that fuel hatred against the Jewish people.”
New York State Assembly member Simcha Eisenstein wrote, “Still wondering why hatred against Jews is so high in NYC? We have a mayor who is using government resources to disseminate a narrative and incite hostile propaganda.”
Still wondering why hatred against Jews is so high in NYC? We have a mayor who is using government resources to disseminate a narrative and incite hostile propaganda.
Mr. International Law guy forgot to include the fact that the Arab world rejected the UN’s partition plan to… https://t.co/TFgqRvqLqE
— Simcha Eichenstein (@SEichenstein) May 15, 2026
The post came the same day as anti-Zionist demonstrators gathered in Manhattan for Nakba Day rallies, with footage showing protesters carrying a Hezbollah flag, stepping on Israeli flags, shouting for Israel’s destruction, and confronting police.
The timing also contrasted with Mamdani’s own statement days earlier praising law enforcement for arresting a man accused of planning an Iran-backed attack on a New York synagogue. Mamdani had said the arrest “comes amid an alarming rise in antisemitism across the country.”
“Let me be clear: Antisemitism, violent extremism, and terrorism have no place in our city. This kind of hate is despicable,” he said.
The UJA-Federation later said it would not attend Monday night’s Jewish American Heritage Month celebration at Gracie Mansion because it was being hosted by a mayor who “denies a core pillar of our heritage — the State of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people,” according to a statement carried by the New York Post.
Mark Treyger, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council, said he would also skip the event. His group organizes the Israel Day Parade at the end of the month, which Mamdani has said he will not attend, breaking with past mayoral practice.
New Yorkers “expect leadership that lowers the temperature, brings people together, and makes every community feel seen, respected, and safe, including Jewish New Yorkers,” Treyger wrote in an X post criticizing Mamdani’s Nakba Day video.
New York is home to the largest Jewish community outside of Israel. For the overwhelming majority of Jewish New Yorkers, the connection to Israel is not political or social media theater. It is ancestral, spiritual, historic, and deeply personal.
At a moment of rising… https://t.co/UbyOX52Ded
— Mark Treyger
(@MarkTreyger718) May 15, 2026
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Pakistan Sends New Iranian Peace Proposal to US
A woman walks past an anti-US billboard depicting US President Donald Trump and the Strait of Hormuz, in Tehran, Iran, May 17, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Iran sent a new peace proposal to the United States with terms that appeared similar to offers Washington has previously rejected, although a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Monday that the US had softened positions on some issues.
A Pakistani source confirmed that Islamabad, which has conveyed messages between the sides in the war in the Middle East since hosting the only round of peace talks last month, had shared the latest proposal with Washington. But the source suggested progress had been difficult.
The sides “keep changing their goalposts,” the Pakistani source said, adding: “We don’t have much time.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei confirmed that Tehran’s views had been “conveyed to the American side through Pakistan” but gave no details. Washington did not immediately comment.
The Iranian proposal, as described by the senior Iranian source, appeared similar in many respects to Iran’s previous offer, which US President Donald Trump rejected last week as “garbage.”
It would focus first on securing an end to the war, reopening the Strait of Hormuz – a major oil supply route that Iran has effectively blockaded – and lifting maritime sanctions.
Contentious issues around Iran’s nuclear program and uranium enrichment would be deferred to later rounds of talks, the source said.
However, in an apparent softening of Washington’s stance, the senior Iranian source said the United States had agreed to release a quarter of Iran’s frozen funds – totaling tens of billions of dollars – held in foreign banks. Iran wants all the assets released.
The Iranian source also said Washington had shown more flexibility in agreeing to let Iran continue some peaceful nuclear activity under supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Iran’s Tasnim news agency separately quoted an unidentified source as saying the US had agreed to waive oil sanctions on Iran while negotiations were under way.
Iranian officials did not immediately comment on Tasnim’s report, which a US official, who declined to be named, said was false.
FRAGILE CEASEFIRE
A fragile ceasefire is in place after six weeks of war that followed US-Israeli airstrikes on Iran. But talks mediated by Pakistan have stalled and Trump has said the ceasefire is “on life support.”
Washington has previously demanded Tehran dismantle its nuclear program and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which normally carries one-fifth of the world’s seaborne oil and liquefied natural gas supply.
Iran has been demanding compensation for war damage, an end to a US blockade of Iranian ports and a halt to fighting on all fronts, including in Lebanon, where Israel is battling the Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist group.
Trump said in a post on Truth Social at the weekend that “the Clock is Ticking” for Iran, adding that “they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!”
Trump is expected to meet top national security advisers on Tuesday to discuss options for resuming military action, Axios reported.
Baghaei said Tehran was prepared for all scenarios.
“As for their threats, rest assured that we are fully aware of how to respond appropriately to even the smallest mistake from the opposing side,” he told a televised weekly press conference.