US President Joe Biden on Wednesday reiterated his country's support for Israel, stating that the Saturday attack by Hamas militants on Israel was the "deadliest" since the Holocaust. Biden also warned Iran against getting involved in the conflict with Hamas.
Biden's statement comes ahead of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's arrival in Israel on Thursday to show Washington's enduring support for Israel and to secure the release of captives, including Americans.
The President said the Hamas attack brought to the fore the painful memories and scars left by a millennium of antisemitism and genocide against the Jewish people. "We have to be crystal clear: There is no justification for terrorism, no excuse and the type of terrorism that was exhibited here is just beyond the pale, beyond the pale," he said.
Biden said he and Vice President Kamala Harris spoke by phone on Wednesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "The United States has Israel's back and we're going to be working on this through the day and beyond," Biden said.
Biden added he had tasked homeland security and law enforcement leaders to work intensively with our Jewish community partners. "We're also going to condemn and combat antisemitism at every single turn, every turn," Biden said. "The past few days have been a solemn reminder that hate never goes away. It can go underground," he said, "but it doesn't go away."
While addressing a roundtable of Jewish community leaders in Washington, Biden said his deployment of military ships and aircraft closer to Israel should be seen as a signal to Iran, which backs Islamist groups Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah. "We made it clear to the Iranians: Be careful," Biden said.
Trump hits out at Israel
Former US President and frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination Donald Trump on Wednesday hit out at Israel for failing to anticipate the weekend Hamas onslaught.
"You talk about the intelligence or you talk about some of the things that went wrong over the last week, they’ve got to straighten it out because they’re fighting potentially a very big force. They’re fighting potentially, Iran," the GOP presidential frontrunner says during a campaign rally in West Palm Beach.
"They cannot play games," Trump continues. "They’ve got to strengthen themselves up."
Trump also took a swipe at Netanyahu for his alleged refusal to provide the US assistance for the killing of Qassem Soleimani, the then-head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds Force in 2020. "I’ll never forget that Bibi Netanyahu let us down. That was a very terrible thing. We were very disappointed, but we did the job ourselves, and it was absolute precision, magnificent, beautiful job," he says. "Then Bibi tried to take credit for it. That didn’t make me feel too good. But that’s all right."
He also hit out at Biden for his foreign policy, stating that the four years under him went without any new wars. "With crooked Joe Biden, you have chaos, bloodshed, war, terror and death. Look what's happening today," Trump told his supporters.
