Ron DeSantis wrapped his campaign schedule in Iowa with a final shot across the bow of Bethlehem.
Not the one in Pennsylvania, either, but the one central to the Christian tradition.
During remarks in Ankeny on Sunday, the Florida Governor fumed about the “Palestinian Arab controlled” city where Christ was born and how “upset” he is by its current condition.
“So if you go to Bethlehem, I mean, it’s honestly, I was really upset. It’s a pigsty, trash everywhere. It was nasty,” DeSantis said.
The travelogue continued.
“They have a church … I think it’s where they think Christ was born,” DeSantis explained. “They built this beautiful church so they have it there and everything and you go in, then you walk out and they built this like massive mosque towering over it because that’s just kind of what they do.”
“So all these key sites, if Israel was not a sovereign over them, you know, I don’t know that they would even last if not. So I think they play an important role (not just) as a democracy in the Middle East, but also (as a) caretaker.”
The Governor has made Bethlehem bashing central to his campaign in the more than three months since Hamas attacked Israelis on Oct. 7.
During a campaign stop in Iowa, the Florida Governor maligned the religiously significant city as a “pigsty” and a “disgrace” just two days before Christmas, complaining of the “intentional” mosque offending his sensibilities on that occasion.
“In fact, Bethlehem is controlled by the Palestinian Arabs. And so there, there’s a church where you can go where they, they say, is where Christ was born. And it’s a beautiful church. But (when) you walk out, first of all, it’s like a pigsty. The city, it’s not well-kept. And then they built this massive mosque right in front of it to like tower over it,” DeSantis commented at the 2023 Presidential Thanksgiving FAMiLY Forum in Iowa.
The Governor seems to be referring to Omar Ibn Al Khattab, which is the sole mosque in Bethlehem’s Old City, opposite the Church of the Nativity.
Lonely Planet notes it “was built in 1860 on land granted by the Greek Orthodox Church in honor of Omar, the Prophet Muhammad’s father-in-law, who in 637 took Jerusalem from the flagging Byzantines and then stopped for prayer at the Christian Church of the Nativity.”
The Pact of Omar declared it would forever be a Christian place of worship.
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