Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called Tuesday for his state to block Iranian businesses from contracts in an effort to punish the Islamic Republic’s support of Hamas after more than 1,000 people have died in Israel since this weekend’s incursion.
“Yes, Iran was involved in orchestrating this attack against Israel,” DeSantis said. “They (Iran) deny it, but we’re smarter than that.”
DeSantis made the comments speaking at The Shul of Bal Harbour, a Chabad Lubavitch Jewish synagogue in Surfside, on Tuesday morning.
To “choke off money going to the Iranian regime,” DeSantis said in the next legislative session he will have a proposal to increase Florida’s sanctions on Iran and to block Iranian businesses from profiting in the state. “We don’t do business with state sponsors of terrorism such as Iran,” he said.
That will prohibit the state and local cities and counties from entering into any contract including the areas of finance, construction, shipbuilding, port sectors, textile, metals, mining, shipping, manufacturing, technology and “we will not lift these sanctions” until both the President and Congress certifies Iran has stopped supporting international terrorism and not seeking weapons of mass destruction.
The legislation would build on a law the governor signed in May that restricts state contracts or property ownership to investors and companies affiliated with “countries of concern,” including Iran, China, Russia, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela and Syria.
Saturday’s incursion of Hamas fighters into Israel resulted in the deaths of more Jews in a single day since the Holocaust, a terror attack likened to America’s Sept. 11. After Hamas launched its unprecedented incursion out of Gaza into Israel, hundreds have been killed on both sides: The Israeli military said more than 1,000 people have died in Israel since Saturday’s incursion, according to The Associated Press. In Gaza and the West Bank, 830 people have been killed, the AP reported, citing authorities there.
Israeli media Tuesday reported that dozens of babies and children had been murdered, many beheaded, Kibbutz Kfar Aza, a collective neighborhood, alone. The Israeli military estimated 1,000 Hamas fighters took part in what has now turned into a war.
The dead includes an estimated 11 Jewish-Americans, including one man from North Miami Beach who was serving in the armed forces, DeSantis said.
The Associated Press reported Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza still hold more than 150 soldiers and civilians hostage, according to Israel. Israeli women have been raped, civilians maimed and massacred, and more — including a baby and a Holocaust survivor in a wheelchair — herded onto pickup trucks and abducted into Gaza.
DeSantis said Florida has among the highest numbers of Israeli-Americans “so this hits close to home.”
“If Hamas and Hezbollah and any Palestinian Arab simply laid down their arms tomorrow, that would result in peace. If Israel laid down its arms tomorrow, that would result in destruction of the Jewish state,” DeSantis said, paraphrasing an often-quoted Jewish line first spoken by former Prime Minister Golda Meir, and more famously paraphrased by Benjamin Netanyahu when he was Knesset Chairman: “If the Arabs lay down their arms there will be no more war, but if Israel lays down its weapons there would be no more Israel.”
DeSantis, a 2024 presidential candidate, blasted the Biden Administration for supporting the $6 billion unfrozen for Iran in exchange for the freedom of five wrongfully detained American citizens. “When Iran gets more money they are not using it to make life better of the people of Iran, they use it to fund terrorism in the Middle East and the world, he said.
“Israel has not only the right to defend itself, Israel has the duty to defend itself with overwhelming force, to defend itself in a way so Hamas terrorist infrastructure and networks is eradicated from the earth,” he said.
He was joined by Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez, who said: “It is for one reason and one reason alone: the total rejection of Israel’s right to exist. If you are capitulating, you too are part of the problem.”
Israel Consul General Maor Elbaz-Starinsky, who was also in Surfside, called it a war between light and darkness, between good and evil.
“It’s important we say as Americans and as Floridians, we stand with the people of Israel and the state of Israel,” DeSantis said.
On Tuesday, DeSantis followed with an interview with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “This is perhaps Israel’s darkest hour,” he said. “Israel has a right to defend itself. … Hamas needs to be no more.”
He said Israel had previously been under international pressure to not be more proactive against terrorists and “taking care of Hamas once and for all,” including from the United Nations.
The Surfside synagogue’s rabbi, Sholom Lipskar, urged sympathizers Tuesday to donate money to Israel’s war effort. Losing this battle is not an option, he said: “Jewish life is not negotiable.”
Lisa J. Huriash can be reached at lhuriash@sunsentinel.com. Follow on X, formerly Twitter, @LisaHuriash