While posing as a defender of free speech, Florida’s Ron DeSantis has played point man on the Israel lobby’s crusade to criminalize American citizens for their exercising their constitutionally-protected right to boycott Israel.

Florida Governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has spent his career as an elected official pushing an array of laws attacking the free speech of American citizens who exercise their constitutionally-protected right to boycott Israel. One anti-boycott bill DeSantis championed sought to send violators to prison for 10 years.

At the same time, the governor has sought to position himself as a champion of the First Amendment. During a 2022 press conference, he stood behind a podium emblazoned with the phrase, “Gov. DeSantis Defends Free Speech.” Flanked by medical professionals bearing signs that read “free speech, free state,” and “science not censorship,” DeSantis slammed the censorship regime erected to enforce public compliance to Covid-19 restrictions.

Yet, when it comes to silencing critics of his major financial benefactors, and limiting the First Amendment rights of American citizens to choose where and where not to spend their hard-earned dollars, DeSantis is more pro-mandate than pro-Madison.

The most recent of DeSantis’ many assaults on the right to boycott came this July 17, as he stood before a Christian Zionist group which supports Israel on the basis that it is the future landing pad for the Messiah.

Branding himself the “most pro-Israel governor in the United States,” the Florida Republican announced an official investigation into the financial ratings firm Morningstar over allegations related to Florida’s ban on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

“Today, I am happy to make — and this law just took effect at the beginning of July — I’m happy to announce for everybody, that Florida has formally instituted an investigation against Morningstar for violations of our anti-BDS law. We’re not letting them target Israel and get away with it, we’re using our tools to fight back,” DeSantis announced at a conference of Christians United for Israel (CUFI). Morningstar has been accused by the state of Florida of downgrading companies that are associated with Israel.

During the same event, DeSantis referred to the occupied Palestinian West Bank by its biblical name, “Judea and Samaria,” insisting it was “not occupied territory.”

The event highlighted the long and obsessive battle DeSantis has waged to crush the free speech and freedom of association rights of Americans who support the call from Palestinian civil society to boycott and divest from Israel.

Before he took up the mantle of “America First” as the governor of Florida and candidate for the Republican nomination for president, Ron DeSantis was one of the congressional point-men for a foreign apartheid state seeking to crush the First Amendment rights of American citizens.

And while positioning himself as an immigration hardliner obsessed with hardening America’s southern border with Mexico, DeSantis has continually insisted that Israel is entitled to remain a borderless, constantly expanding entity, usurping as much territory it seeks from a stateless Palestinian population.

If DeSantis has his way, Americans who disagree with Israel’s apartheid regime and actually seek to do something about it could face as much as ten years in prison.

DeSantis allies with pro-armageddon preacher who urges war on Iran, says Hitler was “half-Jewish”

The CUFI organization which hosted the announcement of DeSantis’ anti-BDS crackdown was founded by Pastor John Hagee, a pro-armageddon Texas-based faith healer who has argued that the Antichrist is gay, has “fierce features” and is “partially Jewish… as Adolph Hitler was.”

Listen to Hagee's views on the role of Hitler and the creation of Israel.

It's horrible. pic.twitter.com/eADHg4nxkf

— Esha K