WASHINGTON: Addressing the nation from the Oval Office on Thursday evening, US President Joe Biden urged Americans to fight both Islamophobia and antisemitism, without equivocation.

His 15-minute speech focused on Israel’s war against Palestinians and the war in Ukraine, as he asked Congress to give him tens of billions of dollars to fund the two wars.

Mr Biden did not specify how much money he was seeking, but the US media reported on Friday that he would seek $60bn for Ukraine and $14bn for Israel as well as funding for border and Indo-Pacific security. In all, the package is expected to exceed $100bn.

Although much of his speech focused on justifying the need to continue supporting Israel, Mr Biden asserted that the United States “remains committed to the Palestinian people’s right to dignity and self-determination”. He called on Israel to uphold “the laws of war” and restated the goal of a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians — though such a goal seems bleakly distant right now.

US president seeks $100bn for Ukraine and Israel

“As I said in Israel, as hard as it is, we cannot give up on peace. We cannot give up on a two-state solution,” he said. “Israel and Palestinians equally deserve to live in safety, dignity and peace.”

But as The Hill, a newspaper that focuses on Congressional matters, pointed out “those remarks were brief and had a perfunctory feel — especially alongside a promise to seek billions of dollars ‘to sharpen Israel’s qualitative military edge’”.

As he vowed to defeat Russia in Ukraine and Hamas in the Middle East, Mr Biden also warned Iran not to get involved in the Israel-Hamas conflict. This followed a statement from the Pentagon on Thursday, saying that a US warship deployed to the Red Sea had shot down three cruise missiles and several drones fired by Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen that may have been aimed at Israel.

The president, however, appeared genuinely concerned when he spoke about the impact of the Israel-Palestinian conflict on various ethnic and religious groups living in the United States.

“Here at home, we have to be honest with ourselves. In recent years, too much hate has given too much oxygen, fueling racism, a rise in antisemitism, Islamophobia, right here in America,” he said.

“I know many of you in the Muslim American community, the Arab American community, the Palestinian American community and so many others are outraged and hardened saying to yourselves, ‘Here we go again with Islamophobia and the distrust we saw after 9/11’,” he said.“We can’t stand by and stand silent when this happens. We must without equivocation denounce antisemitism. We must also without equivocation denounce Islamophobia,” he declared.

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2023