• Fat Dago Woke DeSantis Lied About Sening Weapons To Israel - Now Being

    From Flor-eee-Duh@21:1/5 to All on Sat Oct 28 13:42:48 2023
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    Ron DeSantis’s claim he sent military equipment to Israel unravels

    Florida governor receives pushback for falsely declaring he worked with Israel’s consul general in Miami to send weapons
    Richard Luscombe in Miami
    @richlusc
    Fri 27 Oct 2023 15.46 BST
    Last modified on Fri 27 Oct 2023 18.14 BST

    Ron DeSantis is receiving pushback from Israeli diplomats, Florida
    Democrats and the White House after he falsely claimed credit for a gun- running operation to assist Israel’s military operations in Gaza.

    The Florida governor and 2024 presidential hopeful declared on Thursday
    that he had worked with Israel’s consul general in Miami to send military equipment, including drones, body armor and helmets.
    NYU Students gather for Palestine, New York, USA - 17 Oct 2023<br>
    Mandatory Credit: Photo by Laura Brett/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
    (14156103a) A Palestinian flag flies during a pro-Palestinian rally
    organized by the NYU Students for Justice in Palestine. NYU Students
    gather for Palestine, New York, USA - 17 Oct 2023
    DeSantis seeks to ‘deactivate’ pro-Palestinian student groups in Florida
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    His office, according to Reuters, said it had worked to “get weapons and ammunition to Israel through private parties” as part of his high-profile “rescue operation”. The operation involved sending humanitarian supplies
    on chartered planes and returning from Israel hundreds of US citizens who wanted to come home following the Hamas attacks.

    His boast, however, started to unravel when Maor Elbaz-Starinsky, Israel’s consul general, told the news agency he had not asked for DeSantis’s help,
    and that the governor’s involvement was limited to smoothing paperwork requirements for a previously arranged shipment of “rifle parts” ordered
    by his government.

    “I am not aware and would find it very, very bizarre to think that
    somebody is procuring weapons and sending it to Israel,” he said. “This is
    not how we work. And certainly not privately funded.”

    DeSantis has made hardline support of Israel a prominent part of his
    flailing campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, pledging to
    turn away Palestinian refugees if he was in the White House, and expelling pro-Palestinian student groups from Florida’s university campuses.

    He has called a special session of the Florida legislature for early next
    month to approve state sanctions on Iranian businesses and interests.

    With other presidential contenders, he will attend a donor gathering of
    the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas this weekend. On Friday, he
    will deliver a speech on foreign policy at the Heritage Foundation in Washington DC.

    Critics accuse him of acting as if he were president, and operating a de
    facto foreign policy from the governor’s mansion in Tallahassee that is
    not under his purview.

    “President Biden is the commander in chief of our military, not Ron
    DeSantis,” said Nikki Fried, chair of the Florida Democratic party, in a statement to the Miami Herald.

    “As a navy veteran, Ron should understand the importance of respecting the chain of command. This is a gross breach of norms and a potential
    violation of federal laws governing the shipment of weapons.”

    John Kirby, strategic communications director for the National Security Council, told reporters at the White House on Thursday that he could not
    be certain DeSantis had “checked all the boxes”.

    “It is not illegal for the governor of a state to offer a measure of
    foreign assistance to another country [but] there are laws and regulations which govern how the export process is handled,” he said.

    “That’s all done through commerce. I couldn’t speak with authority today
    about whether the governor has checked all those boxes or not.”
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    In a statement to the Guardian, a spokesperson for the Department of
    Commerce said they could not confirm details of particular transactions,
    but reminded US exporters “seeking to provide support for Israel” that appropriate federal authorizations were necessary.

    “Consistent with the president’s direction, the Bureau of Industry and
    Security and our interagency partners are working to appropriately
    expedite applications for assistance to Israel,” the spokesperson said.

    Elbaz-Starinsky told the Herald that all necessary approvals for the rifle parts requested by Israel had been obtained, but said he was not certain
    it was DeSantis’s office that helped secure them.

    “It was really the first days of the war, everyone was panicked and
    stressed, everything was urgent,” he told the newspaper.

    “I approached a few contacts, including the governor’s office, to get the
    final approval. It went through all the process. I’m not even sure, at the
    end of the day, which one untangled this thing and made the shipment be approved.”

    DeSantis’s office, meanwhile, has backed away from its initial claim it
    worked directly with the consul general to “help get weapons and
    ammunition”.

    Jeremy Redfern, the governor’s press secretary, told Reuters that DeSantis
    “was contacted by the consul general’s office for assistance to clear
    federal bureaucratic hurdles associated with getting those items to
    Israel”.

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