No, Palestinians are not ‘all antisemitic’ — has Ron DeSantis ever even met a Gazan?  

On Oct. 15, The Hill reported GOP governor and 2024 presidential candidate Ron DeSantis’s statement that the U.S. should not take in any Palestinian refugees fleeing Gaza because they “are all antisemitic.” Beyond the racism and inhumanity reflected in DeSantis’s willingness to condemn an entire ethnicity, his claim that Gazans are all antisemitic is simply wrong.   

I’m a Jewish American who mentors young adult Gazan writers. For several years, I’ve been volunteering with We Are Not Numbers (WANN), an organization that supports English-language essay writing for Gazans, West Bank residents and Palestinians in the diaspora who are in or have graduated from college. This youth-led Palestinian project is a way for Gazan young adults to share their own stories — to inform the world of the humanity behind the numbers of people killed, injured and kept under siege and occupation, since there’s been so little media coverage of life in the blockaded territory. 

I’ve worked with seven writers, some of whom I’ve become close enough to consider as family. Before the current devastation, I would help them with their essays and with applications for scholarships, submissions to literary journals and other practical matters. I’d read their poems and short stories, look at photos of their friends and family, and converse with them at length about their lives and mine. They’d ask my advice about personal matters, and when my health was compromised, they reached out with their concern. I never imagined I could feel so close to people on the other side of the world who I connect with only through my computer and phone. 

The fact that I’m Jewish has no bearing on what these brilliant, gentle and compassionate young writers or their families think of me. It’s simply a non-issue. It never even comes up unless I raise it.  

The first time I did was when I asked one mentee how she felt about submitting her essay to a particular magazine, because it was a Jewish magazine. She looked at me, baffled, and asked why she wouldn’t want to be published there. I told her it would be understandable if she didn’t, given what she and her family have suffered at the hands of the Israeli government — expulsion from their village, being sealed into Gaza, living under blockade, and being subjected to frequent bombings that have left her with PTSD and an inability to sleep more than a couple of hours per night. “We don’t have a problem with Jewish people or Judaism,” she said, clearly insulted by what I’d insinuated. “We understand the difference between being Jewish and being Zionist.”  

I have since heard the same refrain from multiple other writers when I’ve broached the subject. In fact, another mentee just texted it to me the other day. He’s the only one I can reach during the current devastation. He’s already had to evacuate twice and is crowded into a small building with no electricity or clean drinking water, with so many people he cannot count them.  

He’s been turning to me for comfort during the continuous bombing, texting me through terrifying pitch-black nights with explosions nearby and buildings coming down around him. One night we counted down the minutes together until his dawn. When he felt calmer, he told me that he thinks of me as a mother, and that I have no idea how much his own mother and sisters care for me just from what he shares with them. I asked him if his family knows I’m Jewish. He said they do.  

I apologized for asking, explaining that I just find it incredible that they could feel love toward a Jewish person they’ve never met, in the midst of such extreme dispossession and violence from a Jewish state. Like other people before him, he responded that of course they understand the difference between being Jewish and being Zionist, and that none of them would connect me or the fact of being Jewish to the hardships that they experience.  

To be honest, I find it astonishing that Gazans, especially teenagers, can make this distinction in the midst of being bombed and facing imminent death, but a U.S. presidential candidate living in safety apparently cannot. The Palestinians in Gaza who I know do not equate race, ethnicity, religion or nationality with political ideology or hatred. They view people as individuals, defined by character alone. This concept seems beyond the comprehension of Ron DeSantis. Then again, how many Palestinians in Gaza does Mr. DeSantis know?   

Meanwhile, his state has become a safe haven for white supremacists who are, in fact, antisemitic. His policies have led to books with Jewish content being banned. He equates being Jewish with being Zionist, as if all Jews have the same political beliefs. He doesn’t treat us as individuals any more than he does Palestinians. The main difference is that he wants our votes. 

I want to know that my mentees are safe, to scoop them up, hold them tight and carry them to safety. The idea that anyone would deny them refugee status based on an assumption that they’re antisemitic leaves me speechless. Thankfully, following my mentees’ examples, I can respond by writing down my own experiences.  

Michelle Lerner is an attorney who volunteers as a mentor with We Are Not Numbers.