Florida Governor and former contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination Ron DeSantis condemned the two-state solution to the Israel-Arab conflict, calling it a “stepping stone” to the destruction of the the State of Israel.
Speaking at the annual Israel American Council summit in Washington D.C. over the weekend, DeSantis accused the Democratic party of catering to radical “pro-Hamas” elements in the party’s far-left base, while turning a blind eye to the rising specter of antisemitism on college campuses.
“It is pathetic that our nation’s oldest and largest political party feels the need to cater to its very own pro-Hamas pockets. If they were in my party, I’d want them to be kicked out of our Republican Party,” DeSantis said.
“What you’re seeing on these college campuses, no question, is a lot of virulent antisemitism, a lot of hate. When you say ‘from the river to the sea’, you are chanting in favor of a second Holocaust. That’s what that means.”
“I do think some of these students are just ignorant. I don’t think they understand even what they’re talking about. You hear some of them talking about ‘end the occupation of Palestine’. And I just think they need a little history lesson: There has never been a Palestinian Arab state!”
DeSantis also criticized advocates for Palestinian statehood, warning that Israel’s enemies are pursuing a two-state solution not as an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict, but as a means to annihilate the State of Israel.
“It’s important for us in the United States to be very clear-eyed about what it means to be a strong ally of the State of Israel, and that means we should not embrace the canard of a two-state solution. That is not seeking to have peace. They are seeking that as a stepping stone to the destruction of the Jewish state and that is not acceptable!”
“You had a Partition Plan from the UN – Jewish state and Arab state,” DeSantis continued, referencing the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181, a non-binding measure passed by the international body in November, 1947.
“The Jews accepted the state and founded Israel. The Arabs rejected the state and they went to war to try to eradicate Israel, and they lost. And they went to war again and they lost in 1967 and 1973 and throughout the intifadas, and so no! That land historically has no stronger connection than any group of people except the Jewish people. It goes about thousands of years. Read your Bible!”
