The non-Trump GOP presidential contenders are struggling for oxygen.
Sniping at one another is always a way to draw headlines and attention from the liberal media who always want to see Republicans damaged.
But now Vivek Ramaswamy challenged Ron DeSantis to one fight that will jolt every Republican.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis wanted to confront the rising tide of anti-Semitism and pro-Hamas sentiment on college campuses.
At Cooper Union college in New York, pro-Hamas demonstrators trapped Jewish students in a library and menaced them with chants and banging on the doors.
Police had to eventually lead the Jewish students to safety through underground tunnels.
Think of a zombie movie, where zombies keep pushing the door to open it and attack the people inside.
Similar visuals emerged from Cooper Union College Library in New York, where Jewish students had to seek shelter from demonstrators
They later had to escape through the tunnels pic.twitter.com/Pxr0QpvqoZ
— Sheetal Kumar Nehra (@sheetalkrnehra) October 26, 2023
DeSantis didn’t want a repeat of that awful scene at colleges and universities in his state.
So Florida State University System Chancellor Ray Rodrigues sent a memo demanding schools deactivate chapters of the National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).
In his letter, Rodrigues stated that SJP declared itself part of the Hamas movement after Hamas called for global solidarity with the Palestinians and that it was a criminal offense under Florida law to provide material support for terrorism.
“In response, and leading up to a ‘Day of Resistance,’ the National Students for Justice in Palestine (National SJP) released a ‘toolkit’ which refers to Operation Al-Aqsa Flood as ‘the resistance’ and unequivocally states: ‘Palestinian students in exile are PART of this movement, not in solidarity with this movement,’” Rodrigues wrote.
“It is a felony under Florida law to ‘knowingly provide material support … to a designated foreign terrorist organization,’” Rodrigues’ letter continued. “Here, National SJP has affirmatively identified it as part of the Operation Al-Aqsa Flood — a terrorist led attack.”
Speaking on The Hill’s The Rising, Ramaswamy disagreed with DeSantis’ decision and claimed “the answer to bad speech is not less speech, it is more speech. And I think it is wrong for us to silence those we disagree with.”
“I don’t think that’s the American way,” Ramaswamy added. “I don’t think that’s productive and I don’t think we convince any of those people by browbeating them into submission through fear either.”
Ever since the Hamas attack, there has been a debate on the Right as to how to handle the pro-Hamas demonstrations on college campuses.
The pro-Hamas students don’t think there should be any consequences for their support for terrorism.
Some – like Ramaswamy – believe the First Amendment covers all speech, good and bad.
Others believe that actively supporting a group that commits atrocities crosses a line to the indefensible and that if employers want to blacklist supporters of terrorism or that if colleges want to no longer recognize pro-Hamas groups, then that is the bed these pro-Hamas demonstrators made.
Informed American will keep you up-to-date on any developments to this ongoing story.
