Saying the United States “has Israel’s back,” President Biden on Tuesday denounced Hamas’ attack as “unadulterated evil” and said America is committing resources to its Middle East ally, including ammunition and interceptors to replenish its Iron Dome.
In blistering remarks that were applauded by members of both political parties in the U.S., Biden said the United States will ensure Israel “does not run out of” critical assets to “defend its cities and its citizens.” Some 1,000 Israeli citizens were killed by Hamas’ attack on the Holy Land Oct 7, with more than 100 taken hostage. At least 14 U.S. citizens were killed, Biden said, and U.S. citizens are among those being held hostage.
Hamas, Biden said, is a terrorist organization.
“This attack has brought to the surface painful memories and the scars left by millennia of antisemitism and genocide of the Jewish people,” Biden said. “So, in this moment, we must be crystal clear: We stand with Israel. We stand with Israel. And we will make sure Israel has what it needs to take care of its citizens, defend itself, and respond to this attack.”
The issue, he said, is “not about party or politics.”
“Hamas does not stand for the Palestinian people’s right to dignity and self-determination,” he said. “Its stated purpose is the annihilation of the State of Israel and the murder of Jewish people. They use Palestinian civilians as human shields. Hamas offers nothing but terror and bloodshed with no regard to who pays the price.”
Biden described the massacre in detail: “Parents [were] butchered using their bodies to try to protect their children. Stomach-turning reports of … babies being killed. Entire families were slain. Young people massacred while attending a musical festival to celebrate peace. Women raped, assaulted, paraded as trophies.”
“Infants in their mothers’ arms, grandparents in wheelchairs, Holocaust survivors abducted and held hostage -- hostages whom Hamas has now threatened to execute in violation of every code of human morality,” he said. “It’s abhorrent.
“The brutality of Hamas, this bloodthirstiness, brings to mind the worst -- the worst -- rampages of ISIS,” Biden said.
Biden said he has spoken three times with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“I told him if the United States experienced what Israel is experiencing, our response would be swift, decisive, and overwhelming,” he said. “... Americans across the country are praying for all those families that have been ripped apart.”
He added, “This is a moment for the United States to come together, to grieve with those who are mourning.”
As a young U.S. senator in the early 1970s, Biden said, he traveled to Israel and met with then-Prime Minister Golda Meir just before the Yom Kippur War. Meir was stalwart and confident, he said.
“For 75 years, Israel has stood as the ultimate guarantor of security of Jewish people around the world so that the atrocities of the past could never happen again,” Biden said. “And let there be no doubt: The United States has Israel’s back. We will make sure the Jewish and democratic State of Israel can defend itself today, and tomorrow, as we always have. It’s as simple as that.”
Photo Courtesy: ©Getty Images/Drew Angerer / Staff
Video Courtesy: AP via YouTube
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
