Ron's Gone Wrong, Con't

Ahh, but we can't have an Israel-Palestine conflict without Florida coming in and reminding everyone that the fascist authoritarians running the place like GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis want to make sure that Palestinians have no voice in the Sunshine State.

 

Florida’s university system chancellor, responding to a push by Gov. Ron DeSantis, directed state universities Tuesday to disband campus groups with ties to the national Students for Justice in Palestine organization, marking the first punishments handed down to colleges here amid the Israel-Hamas war.

In a memo to school leaders, the state ordered a “crack down” on campus events led by the pro-Palestinian organization that the DeSantis administration claims amount to “harmful support for terrorist groups” like Hamas, which attacked Israel in early October. Florida, under Republican presidential candidate DeSantis, has staunchly supported Israel during the ongoing war and was monitoring college protests that have since ignited.

“Based on the National SJP’s support of terrorism, in consultation with Governor DeSantis, the student chapters must be deactivated,” state university system Chancellor Ray Rodrigues wrote Tuesday.

There are at least two Students for Justice in Palestine chapters at Florida universities facing cancellation through ties to the national organization, according to Rodrigues, who did not specify where the groups were located in the memo. The University of Florida and University of South Florida, though, both appear to have active SJP chapters.

 

Free speech is not something Florida Republicans believe in, you see. If you thought they only wanted to get rid of SJP, well, they want Black Lives Matter gone too, starting with both Florida GOP senators, Rick Scott and Marco Rubio.

Some Republican lawmakers are calling on Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser to rename the two-block area in front of the White House that was dubbed “Black Lives Matter Plaza” three years ago amid a wave of racial justice protests.

Groups affiliated with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement have faces a backlash after messages sent out following the grisly Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel appeared to support terrorists and express anti-Israel sentiment.

“BLM chapters across the nation have circulated disturbing anti-Semitic rhetoric and images on social media, encouraging the spread of pro-Hamas propaganda,” the group of more than 20 House and Senate members, all Republicans, wrote in a statement accompanying their letter.

“Continuing to honor terrorist sympathizers with a plaza in our nation’s capital is a slap in the face to all Americans, especially Jewish and Israeli Americans.”

Among Republicans signing the letter: Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.), Thom Tillis (N.C.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Rick Scott (Fla.), Josh Hawley (Mo.), Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.) and Bill Cassidy (La.); and Reps. Elisa Stefanik (N.Y.), Jim Banks (Ind.) and Jeff Duncan (S.C.).

The mayor’s office didn’t immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment on the letter or plans for the plaza.

Immediately after Hamas’s deadly blitz on Israel, which included attacks on multiple kibbutzim and an outdoor music festival, some BLM chapters expressed sympathy with Palestine and appeared to justify the aggression against Israel.

A BLM Chicago chapter posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, an image of a paraglider with the message “I stand with Palestine.” BLM Phoenix shared statements declaring that “Palestinian freedom fighters are not terrorists!,” and “The Palestinian attack was a revolution and attempt to reclaim their freedom.”

BLM chapters are run independently and can be unaffiliated with the broader Black Lives Matter organization, which hasn’t commented on the latest Israeli-Hamas conflict.

 

Sure seems like cancel culture to me. Free Speech only for approved groups is not how it works, gang.

 

And Black Lives Still Matter.