Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis made it clear Thursday as groups planned to use university and college campuses in the state to demonstrate against Israel in support of Hamas that he won’t tolerate threats of violence or actual violence against people who don’t agree with them.
“You think about what happened when you have these Hamas demonstrators out. They’re taking over bridges and they’re taking over roads,” DeSantis told a press conference. “First of all, you don’t have a right to do that. You have someone get stuck in traffic … someone may need to get to a hospital, someone may need to pick up a child somewhere, and you’re just gonna commandeer the road because you have this ideological predilection? They tried to do that in Miami and what happened? In 10 minutes, they got dragged off the road where they belonged. And we are not gonna tolerate that.”
The governor then discussed the recent anti-Semitic protests on college campuses, in which supporters of terrorist groups have committed acts of violence against Jews.
“Some of the stuff with the Hamas, I think, is absurd that someone would go out and demonstrate on that,” he continued. “But when you’re chasing Jewish students around, when you’re not letting a Jewish professor enter a building, when you’re targeting people like that, that’s not free speech. I mean, that’s harassment, that violates appropriate conduct.”
“And yet at Columbia, at Yale, all these places, those guys, those folks rule the roost,” he continued. “They do whatever they want, and these administrators and the presidents of these universities are weak, they’re scared, and they don’t do anything.
“You know, you do that in Florida at our universities, we’re showing you the door. You’re gonna be expelled when you’re doing that stuff. And you know what? The minute people start to face consequences, you are not gonna see this nonsense going on,” DeSantis added.
WATCH:
At places like Columbia and Yale, Hamas protesters rule the roost, and the universities are too weak and scared to do anything—even as these mobs harass Jewish students and faculty.
If you try that at a Florida university, you are going to be expelled. pic.twitter.com/pY1VkoiTwn
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) April 25, 2024
