Top Jewish Florida Republican to DeSantis: Punish ‘Illegal Jew Hating Protests’  

The only Jewish Republican in Florida’s Legislature is demanding that Gov. Ron DeSantis use an antisemitism law to punish pro-Palestinian demonstrators at state colleges whom he accuses of spreading hate after the Hamas attacks in Israel.

Criticized as unconstitutional and inaccurate by pro-Palestinian activists, State Rep. Randy Fine’s demand for action zeroed in on 2019 law treating antisemitism as a form of racial discrimination that could result in expulsion of students or clubs in K-20 educational institutions as well as the withholding of funds from them.

DeSantis's office said he agrees with Fine but noted that "these laws must be enforced by universities." The governor's office pointed to memos it sent "reminding universities, colleges, and law enforcement throughout the state that they have a responsibility to protect the Jewish community from threats and unlawful harassment."

The call from Fine, who has endorsed DeSantis’s presidential campaign, elevates the issue for the governor who has made the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks a central campaign issue. This week, DeSantis announced the state would help Americans trapped in Israel get out of the country and he called for new state sanctions on Iran.

DeSantis also criticized former President Donald Trump, the primary's frontrunner, for his remarks about the attacks, but Fine said DeSantis's criticisms are misguided. Fine, who sponsored the legislation, said the governor needs to act to enforce the antisemitism law he signed in Israel.

“Since Saturday, there have been celebrations of Jewish death across Florida,” Fine said in his letter to DeSantis that he emailed Friday with the subject line “Illegal Jew Hating Protests.”

Fine also said he believes the pro-Palestinian motto "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" also constitutes illegal hate speech.

Fine’s letter cited demonstrations at schools in eight Florida cities linked to the group Students for Justice in Palestine, which issued a “call to action: day of resistance” the day after the Hamas attacks.

“Today, we witness a historic win for the Palestinian resistance: across land, air, and sea, our people have broken down the artificial barriers of the Zionist entity, taking with it the facade of an impenetrable settler colony and reminding each of us that total return and liberation to Palestine is near,” the group said on social media.

At Florida State University, Fine’s letter said, “used signs showing an image of the armed paraglider that killed 260 young people at a music festival ironically in support of peace.” The image gained widespread attention and condemnation after Chicago’s Black Lives Matter chapter posted it on social media.

Those signs and that language violates, he said, the state prohibition against “calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews, often in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion.”

The student group’s FSU chapter, contacted by Facebook, could not be reached by The Messenger.

Hassan Shibley, a leading Muslim rights activist and lawyer in Florida, said Fine was taking the demonstrations out of context and calling for an illegal infringement of free speech.

“Standing up for the occupied Palestinian people and calling out Israeli war crimes, occupation, and apartheid is not anti-semitism,” Shibley said. “Does DeSantis really believe the war crimes committed by Israel represent Judaism!? They do not. They represent corrupt Israeli political leaders who have no regard for Palestinian life. Christians and Jews proudly stand with us to denounce Israeli war crimes.”

Fine dismissed the criticisms but acknowledged the law would probably be challenged in court, but he believes it needs to be enforced.

“I named my youngest son David, in honor of the small soldier who picked up a stone to fight one of 1000 armies who have sought our extermination,” Fine wrote in his letter. “I have given you the stones. I would give everything I have to be able to pick them up and use them myself. But G-d chose you for this moment. We need you to pick them up.”