The US president said Thursday that the world cannot give up on a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, arguing that both peoples deserve to “live in security.”
“No matter how difficult it is, we cannot give up on peace. We cannot give up on the two-state solution,” said Joe Biden in a rare speech in the Oval Office of the White House, broadcast live on the main television of the country. networks.
“Israel and the Palestinians equally deserve to live in security, dignity and peace,” he stressed, in a message addressed to Israelis and Palestinians, but also to American progressive democrats who are dissatisfied with the “too pro-Israel” stance of the Head of State. position.
In a 15-minute speech, in which he announced to the country that he will send Congress an “urgent” request to finance military assistance to Israel and Ukraine, Biden took the opportunity to mourn the death of all the civilians murdered in Israel and Gaza. highlighting that the Islamist group Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people.
Biden, who visited Israel on Wednesday, noted that he discussed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the critical need for Israel to operate according to the laws of war, following the Hamas attack on October 7.
“This means protecting civilians in combat. The people of Gaza urgently need food, water and medicine. In talks with the leaders of Israel and Egypt, I reached an agreement for the first shipment of humanitarian assistance from the United Nations to civilians Palestinians in Gaza,” he recalled.
The head of state also took advantage of the occasion to address the anger and division that has inflamed North American communities in recent days, in direct relation to the conflict between Israel and Hamas, denouncing anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.
Biden directly referenced the murder last weekend of Wadea Al-Fayoume, a six-year-old Palestinian-American boy who was stabbed to death by his landlord, as an example of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian bias that cannot be tolerated.
“I see you, you belong here. And I want to tell you this: you are all Americans,” Biden said, in what was only his second speech from the Oval Office of the White House since assuming the presidency of the United States. January 2021.
Shortly before Biden condemned the rise of Islamophobia in the United States in his speech, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim civil rights group, announced that a hotel in Virginia had canceled one of its meetings this year. Saturday due to multiple terrorist threats directed at the hotel, staff, CAIR and the Muslim population.
Source: TSF
