WASHINGTON — President Biden gave his most forcefully pro-Israel speech in months Tuesday, slamming the “absolutely despicable” rise of antisemitism inside the United States and chiding pro-Hamas protesters on college campuses for “forgetting” that terrorists’ Oct. 7 slaughter of hundreds had triggered war in the Middle East.
The 81-year-old president pledged his “ironclad” support to the Jewish state at an event hosted by DC’s Holocaust museum at the US Capitol — just before reports emerged that his administration is halting shipments of precision bombs to deter an Israeli offensive against Rafah, the final major area of Hamas control.
“We’ve seen a ferocious surge of antisemitism in America and around the world — vicious propaganda on social media, Jews forced to hide their kippahs under baseball hats, tuck their Jewish stars into their shirts,” Biden said in his 15-minute address, five days after briefly addressing nationwide campus protests with documented cases of antisemitism following an initial 10 days of silence.
“On college campuses, Jewish students [have been] blocked, harassed, attacked while walking to class — antisemitic posters, slogans calling for the annihilation of Israel — the world’s only Jewish state,” he continued.
“Too many people [are] denying downplaying, rationalizing and ignoring the horrors of the Holocaust and October 7, including Hamas’s appalling use of sexual violence to torture and terrorize Jews. It’s absolutely despicable and it must stop.”
Biden, dubbed “Genocide Joe” by many of the anti-Israel protesters, has for months increasingly accused Israel of doing too little to avoid killing civilians and aid workers in Gaza.
Reclaiming more forceful pro-Israel rhetoric that he used earlier in the conflict, Biden blamed Hamas for starting the seven-month-old war.
“The terrorist group Hamas unleashed the deadliest day of the Jewish people since the Holocaust, driven by ancient desire to wipe out the Jewish people off the face of the earth,” he said. “Over 1,200 innocent people — babies, parents, grandparents — slaughtered in their kibbutz, massacred at a music festival, brutally raped, mutilated, and sexually assaulted.
“Thousands more [are] carrying wounds, bullets and shrapnel from the memory of that terrible day they endured. Hundreds [were] taken hostage, including survivors of the [Holocaust]. Now, here we are, not 75 years later, but just seven-and-a-half months later, and people are already forgetting that Hamas unleashed this terror — that it was Hamas that brutalized Israelis, that it was Hamas that took and continues to hold hostages. I have not forgotten, nor have you and we will not forget.”
Biden added: “My commitment to the safety of the Jewish people and the security of Israel and its right to exist as an independent Jewish state is ironclad, even when we disagree.”
The US leader visited Israel just days after Hamas’ surprise attacks in southern Israel and in October denounced the terror group’s death toll data from inside Gaza as propaganda — before appearing in February to embrace those figures as he increased pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry claims nearly 35,000 have died in the territory of 2 million.
Biden said publicly in February that the Israeli operation in Gaza was “over the top” and on Monday warned Netanyahu in a phone call not to invade Rafah, where US officials believe more than 1 million Gaza residents are living.
Polling shows Biden’s re-election at risk due to backlash from key Democratic constituencies, such as younger voters, Arab Americans and Muslim Americans — while Netanyahu has pushed back on Biden’s mounting criticism.
“If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone,” Netanyahu said in a defiant speech Sunday at Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.
“Eighty years ago in the Holocaust, the Jewish people were totally defenseless against those who sought our destruction. No nation came to our aid. Today, we again face enemies bent on our destruction.
“I say to the leaders of the world: No amount of pressure, no decision by any international forum will stop Israel from defending itself… We will defeat our genocidal enemies. ’Never again’ is now.”
