{"id":135556,"date":"2026-01-28T22:33:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T22:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/135556\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T22:33:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T22:33:12","slug":"donna-deegan-under-fire-after-speech-to-jacksonvilles-ramallah-american-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/135556\/","title":{"rendered":"Donna Deegan under fire after speech to Jacksonville’s Ramallah American Club"},"content":{"rendered":"

Democratic Jacksonville<\/a> Mayor Donna Deegan<\/a> is under fire for speaking at the city\u2019s Ramallah American Club<\/a>, which has been around for decades and has worked to preserve what the club calls \u201cPalestinian heritage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeremy Redfern<\/a>, a spokesman for Attorney General\u00a0James Uthmeier, spotlighted Deegan speaking at the event with a provocative description.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan spoke next to a Palestinian flag and behind a keffiyeh commonly worn by and associated with Hamas terrorists,\u201d he posted to X.<\/p>\n

Uthmeier has zeroed in on various issues with the administration, including the city requiring people carrying guns into public buildings to sign in from 2023 until the middle of last year, a practice he has said is \u201cunlawful.\u201d This is just the latest criticism from his office.<\/p>\n

Unlike previous critiques, the Mayor took this one personally. Deegan, a Jacksonville native of Lebanese descent who attended Bishop Kenny High School and whose cousin, Tommy Hazouri Sr., served as Mayor, responded by clarifying what the club was and shading Redfern for being unfamiliar with Jacksonville.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone from Jacksonville knows the Ramallah Club is a Palestinian civic organization that was founded by Christians from Ramallah and that has been contributing to our city for more than a century,\u201d Deegan said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was proud to be joined on the dais by Councilman Ron Salem, a longtime member of the club, and was pleased to see Congressman John Rutherford there as well to celebrate the club\u2019s impact on Saturday. It\u2019s disappointing to see partisan actors use people\u2019s rich heritage to divide our community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Interestingly, Salem took issue with the optics Deegan created by posting the pictures from Saturday on Tuesday, calling for an apology not for speaking at the event, but for not mentioning International Holocaust Remembrance Day.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Ramallah community is an important part of the fabric of our city. I\u2019ll always take part in recognizing that as my heritage and I\u2019m proud of that,\u201d Salem said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast night at the Jacksonville Council meeting my colleagues and I took a moment of silence and reflection for the atrocities committed during the Holocaust. This day serves as reflection and a reminder of the victims and that horror must never again happen. I find it appalling that Mayor Deegan failed to recognize that yesterday and I think she owes the Jacksonville Jewish community an apology.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Mayor\u2019s Office rejects Salem\u2019s framing.<\/p>\n

\u201cMayor Deegan has consistently demonstrated her commitment to standing with the Jewish community, and against bigotry and hatred in our city,\u201d a spokesperson said. \u201cThat is why she became the first Jacksonville mayor to celebrate Jewish American Heritage Month with a ceremony in the City Hall Atrium; why she spoke at the 1-year remembrance of\u00a0October 7th at the Jacksonville Jewish Center; why she has repeatedly called for all elected officials to speak out against rising antisemitism in Florida; why she was the first local leader to denounce hateful messaging projected onto Everbank Stadium; why she appeared as the keynote speaker at the Jewish Federation\u2019s screening of \u2018A Tree of Life: The Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting;; and why she will continue her commitment to make our city a place where all its residents feel safe and heard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deegan had been called out in 2024 by the Republican Party of Florida<\/a> for saying\u00a0Donald Trump, who was then running for a second term as President, would put undocumented immigrants \u201cin what would really amount to a concentration camp-type situation to round them out of the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many listeners associate the phrase \u201cconcentration camps\u201d with the Nazi German facilities that killed millions of people during the Holocaust, discounting Deegan\u2019s caveat that she wasn\u2019t \u201csuggesting anything beyond\u201d the \u201cconcentration camp-type situation\u201d in the process.<\/p>\n

Yet despite his call to Deegan to apologize, Salem has also taken sharp criticism.<\/p>\n

In October 2023, Salem, a Republican of Palestinian descent, was the sole \u201cno\u201d vote<\/a> on a\u00a0City Council resolution<\/a> \u201cin Support of Israel as It Defends Itself in the War Launched by the Terrorist Organization Hamas.\u201d The measure stipulated that the Council \u201cstands unequivocally allied with Israel\u201d during its military operations.<\/p>\n

Salem paid a price for his dissidence. He had to take security precautions for weeks afterward and faced calls for his resignation.<\/p>\n

American Federation of Ramallah, Palestine<\/a> President Joy B Freiha<\/a> also commented, saying the \u201ccharacterization of Mayor Deegan simply doesn\u2019t reflect what actually occurred.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was there at the Ramallah Club\u2019s invitation, along with (Rutherford and Salem), to witness the swearing in of the Club\u2019s new officers,\u201d said Freiha, a club member herself who is personally very outspoken about the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

This issue illustrates Jacksonville\u2019s complicated cultural tapestry, which may not make sense to those outside the city. Whether it\u2019s an issue in the upcoming race for Mayor remains to be seen, but it appears to be politically potent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Democratic Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan is under fire for speaking at the city\u2019s Ramallah American Club, which has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[5890,116,118,117,66411,66412],"class_list":["post-135556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-donna-deegan","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jeremy-redfern","tag-ramallah-american-club"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}