GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis spoke Wednesday at the University of Florida to decry ongoing pro-Palestinian demonstrations at college campuses even as protesters could be heard chanting nearby.
Speaking over chants of “Free, free Palestine,” DeSantis suggested that Palestine has never existed as a state and framed criticism of Israel — such as in the form of chants commonly heard at pro-Palestinian protests — as anti-Jewish.
“When you’re talking about ‘From the river to the sea,’ you’re essentially saying you want a second Holocaust, that you want to wipe Israel off the map, and that’s what Hamas stands for. That’s why Hamas perpetrated the Oct. 7 attack. So when you see that, you know, that is not what we want to be producing in terms of leaders around this country, and I also look at it and I’m like, ‘You know, how many of them actually have studied the history of this? Very few.’ They’re just doing this because they think it’s a cheap cause,” DeSantis said. “The reality is, if you actually studied the history of this, you would be able to see there’s never been a Palestinian state. That was Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years, then the British Mandate, then the U.N. Partition Plan, and basically Israel accepted that and the Arabs rejected and they went to war and they lost, so we can talk about that, but I think a lot of these people that are just spouting nonsense, they don’t know what they’re talking about.”
DeSantis said at the conference that he would approve an additional $20 million in the 2024-25 fiscal budget for security at Jewish day schools, as well as another $20 million to increase security and bolster infrastructure at Florida HBCUs.
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With roots in the decades-old “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” movement — which calls to “end complicity with Israel’s genocidal 76-year-old regime of settler-colonialism and apartheid,” the group’s website states — pro-Palestinian demonstrators at U.S. universities have voiced unified demands that their schools stop doing business with Israel or with any company that supports its ongoing war in Gaza. Further, the protesters demand that their universities make clear where students’ tuition money is headed.
Ray Rodrigues, chancellor of State University System of Florida, said it would be “shameful” for universities to come to agreements with any such protesters, calling it akin to “negotiating with law-breakers.”
“It is shameful to witness these universities negotiating with law-breakers, appeasing their demands, offering amnesty to the guilty and divesting their funds,” Rodrigues said.
The University of Florida in April notified students of what would — and would not — be tolerated during on-campus demonstrations. On April 29, nine people were arrested by UF police and the Florida Highway Patrol for alleged violations of the rules.
Wednesday, UF President Ben Sasse referred to the protesting as nonsense, reassuring “the Floridians who pay our bills” that the university will uphold speech and assembly rights, as well as the law.
“Too much of higher education has been captured by a lot of nonsense over the course of the last weeks and that won’t happen at the University of Florida. To the law enforcement officers who have kept things peaceful, thank you. Your professionalism has been amazing. Over the course of the last two weeks in particular, you have been long-suffering, giving protesters the right to exercise their free speech rights, but also the opportunity to come into compliance with our time, place and manner restrictions. Our goal has not been to arrest, it has been to help people get into compliance with the law, and what you have done in the face of being spit on, being shouted at with profanities, has been amazing,” Sasse said. “...To our Jewish students, UF is proud to be home to the most Jewish students anywhere in the country. This is the most Jewish university in the country and it is great to be a Jewish Gator.”
In Gaza, nearly seven months of war have led to what the U.N. this week formally declared a “full-blown famine” in the north. In the south, some 1.4 million Palestinians take refuge in the city of Rafah.
Hamas on Monday said it had accepted an Egyptian-Qatari cease-fire proposal, yet Israel said the deal did not meet its core demands, pledging to push ahead with an assault on Rafah. Aid agencies have warned that such an offensive will bring a surge of more civilian deaths in an Israeli campaign that has already killed over 34,000 people and devastated the territory.
The war was sparked by the unprecedented Oct. 7 raid into southern Israel in which Palestinian militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted some 250 hostages. After exchanges during a November cease-fire, Hamas is believed to still hold about 100 hostages as well the bodies of around 30 others.
Watch Wednesday’s news conference again in the media player below:
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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