Joe Biden urges Israel not to be carried away by anger

Washington – The president of the United States, Joe Biden, urged Israel this Thursday not to be carried away by anger after the attack carried out on October 7 by the Palestinian group Hamas and reaffirmed his vision that the two-state solution is the way more viable for the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“I have asked the Government of Israel not to be carried away by anger”said the president in a speech from the Oval Office of the White House, which was broadcast live on the country’s main television networks.

Biden compared the moment that Israel is experiencing with what his country experienced after the attacks of September 11, 2001, when many Americans were outraged and “mistakes” were made in the United States’ response to terrorism, while seeking justice. .

“In times like these, when fear and suspicion, anger and rage run strong, we have to work harder than ever to hold on to the values ​​that make us who we are, a nation of religious freedom and freedom of expression.”he claimed.

The American president tried to tone down the warmongering discourse of recent days, although his support for Israel remains clear and today he announced that tomorrow he will ask Congress for an urgent budget allocation to defend this country, which according to the press could be quantified at $14 billion.

Biden wanted to refer in his speech to the social consequences that are occurring due to the war in Gaza and stated that in recent days past fears have been revived. “Jewish families are worried about being attacked at school,” while he is seeing again “the Islamophobia and distrust that we saw after 9/11.”

The president recalled the murder last week in Chicago of a six-year-old Palestinian boy, whose mother was seriously injured, at the hands of his landlord in what the Prosecutor’s Office considers a hate crime.

“We cannot sit idly by and remain silent when this happens. We must unequivocally denounce anti-Semitism. We must also denounce, without a doubt, Islamophobia”he claimed.

The United States, he added, rejects “all forms of hatred,” against Jews, Muslims, or anyone else.

Although support for Israel from the US Congress is almost unanimous, in recent days there have been protests in the streets of the United States in favor of Palestine and against the participation of the United States in the conflict.

Yesterday, a protest inside and outside the United States Capitol demanded that the Joe Biden Administration and Congress advocate for a ceasefire in Gaza and stop financing the Israeli “genocide” in Palestine, according to some of their posters.

The protest was called by the progressive organizations “If not now” and “Jewish voice for Peace”, made up of American Jews mobilized against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which were behind another similar demonstration held on Monday. before the White House.

Biden traveled to Israel and this Wednesday supported the Israeli thesis about the explosion the day before in a Gaza hospital, which points to a failed Islamic Jihad rocket as the cause, and convinced Israel to agree to the entry of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian enclave from Egypt.