The President of the United States, Joe Biden, announced this Thursday during a speech from the Oval Office that he will ask Congress to approve an emergency aid package for Ukraine and Israel “that will be unprecedented.”
Biden has emphasized that this aid will keep US troops out of conflicts while helping to defeat “the Hamas terrorists” and the “tyrant (Vladimir) Putin”, who he believes seek to “end democracies.”
“Hamas and Putin represent different threats, but they have this in common: they both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy, completely annihilate it,” Biden explained to justify this aid.
However, the US president has differentiated between the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), which he calls for its destruction, and the Palestinian people, and has reiterated his commitment to achieving peace and a two-state solution to the conflict.
In fact, he has been “deeply moved” by the death of Palestinians after the attack on the Al Ahli Gaza hospital, in which 471 people died, but he has disassociated the Israeli Army from its alleged responsibility in the bombing.
“I am shocked by the tragic loss of Palestinian lives, including the Gaza hospital explosion, which was not the work of the Israelis. We mourn every innocent life lost. We cannot ignore the humanity of innocent Palestinians who just want to live in peace and have an opportunity,” added the president.
Based on this, he has urged Israel to act based on the laws of war and has reiterated that Palestinians in the Gaza Strip must have access to food and humanitarian aid, and that under no circumstances should this reach the armed group. .
“No matter how difficult it may be, we cannot give up on peace. We cannot give up on a two-state solution. Israel and the Palestinians equally deserve to live in security, dignity and peace,” the president said.
In that sense, he explained that a more stable and better connected Middle East, with more job opportunities and more predictable markets, benefits the United States.
On the other hand, he has insisted on the importance of continuing to help Ukrainians so that Russia “does not eliminate Ukraine.” “Kiev is still standing because of the help of the US-led coalition (…) I know we have divisions, but we must overcome them. We will not let terrorists like Hamas or tyrants like Putin win. We must remind the world who we are. There is no nothing out of our reach if we put our minds to it,” Biden said.
The president, who has not forgotten “the massacres, the torture chambers or the deported children” by Russia, will ask Congress to agree on the approval of the budgets so that aid to Ukraine continues to flow and that they can defend themselves “of the brutality” of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Consequences of the Hamas assault
Biden has also recalled the consequences of the Hamas assault against southern Israel, which has left 1,400 Israelis and 32 American citizens dead to date.
Among the almost 200 kidnapped by Hamas there are eleven United States citizens, and he has maintained that he will do “everything possible” to bring them back.
Finally, he has asked American society to put aside anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, and has maintained that “everyone is an American.”
“The attacks of October 7 have opened deep wounds in the Jewish community in the United States (…) we must end anti-Semitism and Islamophobia,” stressed Biden, who also recalled the Palestinian child recently murdered in Chicago for being Muslim.