DeSantis: US shouldn’t take in Gaza refugees because they’re ‘all antisemitic’

Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis says the United States should not take in any Palestinian refugees if they flee the Gaza Strip because they “are all antisemitic” and he dismisses international entreaties for Israel to provide clean running water and utilities to the 2.3 million civilians in the territory.

DeSantis’ comments are a striking departure from the public stand taken by US officials, including some of his fellow Republicans, who draw distinctions between the Palestinian people and Hamas. The terror group has ruled has Gaza since 2007 and launched a terror onslaught against Israel last weekend, killing some 1,300 people, most of them civilians.

“You have Israelis being held hostage, as well as Americans being held hostage, but I don’t think they are under an obligation to be providing water and these utilities while those hostages are being held. Hamas should return those hostages before any discussions are had,” DeSantis tells CBS’s “Face The Nation.”

DeSantis defends his remarks during the TV interview, suggesting that Hamas’s rule of Gaza meant none should be accepted as refugees into the US.

“The US should not be absorbing any of those. I think the culture — so they elected Hamas, let’s just be clear about that. Not everyone’s a member of Hamas, most probably aren’t. But they did elect Hamas,” he said of people in Gaza.

Hamas took power in Gaza in 2007, overthrowing the Palestinian Authority in a bloody coup. No elections have been held since.

He described what he said is “a toxic culture” in Gaza. “I think if we were to import large numbers of those to the United States, I think it would increase antisemitism in this country, and I think it would increase anti-Americanism in this country,” DeSantis said.