Joe Biden, US president, has publicly supported Israel since the start of the clashesAFP
Published 05/07/2024 15:52
The President of the United States, Joe Biden, promised this Tuesday (7) to combat the “ferocious” increase in anti-Semitism, in a speech on the occasion of Remembrance Day, amid the context of tensions in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and pro-Palestinian demonstrations at American universities.
Biden, who has supported Israel since the beginning of the conflict, lamented that many people seem to have forgotten that it was the Islamist movement that “detonated this terror” with the attack on Israel on October 7.
“I haven’t forgotten, nor have you. We won’t forget,” Biden said at the ceremony hosted on Capitol Hill by the Holocaust Museum.
“We have seen a fierce rise in anti-Semitism in the United States and around the world,” said the president, who also referred to college campuses in the United States, the scene of weeks of pro-Palestinian protests that were broken up on several occasions by police.
“There is no place at any American university, anywhere in the United States, for anti-Semitism, hate speech, or violence of any kind,” he emphasized. Jewish students have reported a rise in anti-Semitism since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
The protesters, in turn, deny being anti-Semitic and criticize the fact that little attention is paid to the alleged harassment of Muslim and Palestinian students. Biden has been criticized by both Republicans and Democrats for remaining silent on the protests for many days.
The American president’s speech comes at a time when Israel takes control of an important crossing in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, despite warnings from Washington, and amid complicated negotiations for a truce in the conflict and the release of hostages detained in Palestinian territory.
