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.
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.”
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”.
• This article was amended on 27 October 2023. A previous version said the special session of the Florida legislature was scheduled for this month when it is scheduled for early next month.
