Hamas has “vehemently” rejected the comments made by U.S President, Joe Biden concerning the ongoing clashes between the Israeli army and the militant group.
The Hamas said that Biden’s remarks “cover up” the Israeli government’s “crimes and terrorism against the Palestinian people.”
The Palestinian group described Biden’s latest comments as “inflammatory” and said they came amid “barbaric Israeli occupation aggression against the Gaza Strip.”
Biden made the speech on Tuesday, October 10, 2023. In his speech, he decried the Hamas attacks as “sheer evil.”
Biden pledged further military assistance for Israel and said the US had shifted its military posture in the region to send a message to anyone “seeking to take advantage” of the conflict.
He failed to reference the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Israel’s pledge of a “complete siege” of the enclave, or the rising toll of Palestinian casualties.
Instead, he focused on Israeli victims.
Also in his speech, Biden described Hamas as a “terrorist” organisation and said it “doesn’t stand for the Palestinian people’s right to dignity and self-determination.”
In response, Hamas said that Biden’s speech “did not point to the massacres committed by the Israeli occupation forces against the Palestinian people in cold blood and under the nose of the whole world”.
Hamas described Israel’s policies as “collective punishment against more than two million people in Gaza” and “a blatant violation of all international norms and conventions”.
Commenting on Biden’s speech, Ariel Gold, from the Fellowship of Reconciliation, told a news agency that the speech was “possibly the most pro-Israel speech that any President has ever given”.
“International law says that you can’t deny food, water, fuel and electricity to civilians like is being done… and the Biden administration is yet to say that Israel’s action to tighten the siege… is unacceptable.”
Ariel Gold
“There has to be mediation, because there is no military solution to this conflict,” Gold added.
Moreover, Joyce Ajlouny, the general secretary of the American Friends Service Committee; a Nobel Peace Prize-winning Quaker organisation that has been working in Gaza since 1949, accused Western governments of turning a blind eye to the suffering of Palestinians.
Ajlouny stated that there’s been no condemnation whatsoever “of that racist rhetoric coming from the Israeli government.”
“We had the Israeli finance minister saying Palestinians have three options – immigrate, or live under subjugation or die and we had others call Palestinians human animals. And another order the torching of villages in West Bank. And another saying stop food, water and electricity to Gaza. This is collective punishment.”
Joyce Ajlouny
Ajlouny iterated, “So the double standard that we see in the US government and others around the world is mind boggling.”
“Ukraine is an example of a country that was invaded and you saw the reaction. Palestinians have been occupied for decades and they are looking the other way. And the US government – the supposed promoter of human rights, of peace around the world – when it comes to Palestine, it turns the other way.”
Joyce Ajlouny
Putin Blames U.S Policy Failures For Israel-Hamas War
Meanwhile, Russian President, Vladimir Putin labelled the Israel-Hamas war as a result of failed U.S foreign policy.
Speaking at the start of his talks with visiting Iraqi Prime Minister, Mohammed Al-Sudani on Tuesday, Putin said that “many will agree with me that this is a vivid example of the failure of the U.S policies in the Middle East.”
Putin said that the U.S has “tried to monopolise the settlement, but, regrettably hasn’t bothered to search for compromises that would be acceptable to both parties and, just the opposite, sought to enforce their own view of how it should be done, exerting pressure on both parties.”
He added that the U.S has failed “to take vital interests of the Palestinian people into account,”ignoring UN General Assembly resolutions envisaging the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
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