After a day of “Where’s Biden?” trending on X, bowing to pressure from both Republicans and his own party, the president finally addressed the violence roiling U.S. colleges in a hastily organized speech at the White House.
Too little, too late.
The campus protests have spiraled out of control, leading to horrifying hostility toward Jews and hundreds of arrests. Until now Joe Biden has largely been mute, reminding many of the Black Lives Matter mantra “silence is violence.” But today’s overdue comments are unlikely to move the needle or stem the discord.
Even Biden-supporting Al Sharpton is horrified by the upheaval at schools, saying, “How do the Democrats — how do all of us on that side — say January 6th was wrong if you can have the same pictures going on on college campuses?”
Joe Biden is like a cat on a hot tin roof, hopping back and forth between supporting Israel and showing his concern for Palestinians, talking up his antisemitism bona fides but simultaneously chastising Israel for its efforts to eradicate Hamas. The president is desperate to please both sides but is ultimately offending everyone.
At a recent protest at the University of Alabama, both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel supporters chanted “F*** Joe Biden,” in a rare moment of unity.
The president has brought this on himself, displaying no moral certitude but instead caving to raw political necessity. In his address, he finally spoke out against violent protests, and criticized the antisemitism that has marked the pro-Palestinian demonstrations. But he also felt compelled to couple that admonishment with equally strident condemnation of “islamophobia, or discrimination against Arab-Americans or Palestinian-Americans.” Where has that been a problem?
Biden is scared to death that backing Israel is alienating the Arab-American and young voters he will need in November, and he cannot do without the massive support he and other Democrats receive from Jews. Hence, the blatant pandering and equivocation.
With one hand, he sends weapons to Israel’s army, locked in a life-or-death battle with terror group Hamas; with the other he threatens sanctions against a unit of the IDF, based on charges of human rights violations in the West Bank that occurred prior to 2022.
After receiving widespread condemnation from Israeli leaders who denounced the threatened sanctions as the “height of absurdity,” the administration stood down. Note the State Department has been investigating this supposed wrongdoing since 2022 and the violations have nothing to do with Israel’s assault on Hamas. It is simply window dressing, meant to signal to critics that the administration is holding the Jewish state accountable.
In another hopscotch, Biden has proposed recently bringing Palestinian refugees with ties to the U.S. into our country. Since a recent survey found 71 percent of Palestinians in Gaza support Hamas’s October 7 massacre, such a suggestion is outrageous.
Biden’s positions have wobbled with polling that shows increasing sympathy for Palestinians. In one of his rare earlier comments on the current uproar on college campuses, made on April 22, he said “I condemn the antisemitic protests. That’s why I’ve set up a program to deal with that. I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.”
Joe Biden needs to forcefully address not just antisemitism in the abstract but the vile anti-Jew symbols and language that have wracked our campuses for weeks. He needs to call out those funding and organizing the anti-American flag-burning protests, as New York City Mayor Eric Adams has done. While defending the right to protest and free speech, Adams spoke out forcefully against the provocateurs stirring up campus riots saying, “So blame me for being proud to be an American. … We are not surrendering our way of life to anyone.”
Biden has had plenty of opportunities to follow suit. At the White House Correspondents’ dinner this weekend, for instance, instead of imploring the press to help him win reelection (while claiming he wasn’t doing exactly that) he might have deplored signs declaring “We are Hamas” or that evoke the Nazi-era “final solution” — meaning the extermination of Jews.
The president’s behavior is a disgusting example of naked political interest overwhelming moral certitude. Biden is terrified that his backing of Israel will cost him critical swing states including Michigan, after more than 101,000 residents of that state voted “uncommitted” in the March Democratic primary.
Just a year ago, the White House released what it described as the “First-Ever U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism.” The program included “over 100 new actions and over 100 calls to action,” including “new actions to counter antisemitism on college campuses and online.” In retrospect, the move seems prescient, though utterly ineffective.
In its opening statement of purpose, Joe Biden recalls that, “Six years ago, Neo-Nazis marched from the shadows through Charlottesville, Virginia, chanting, “Jews will not replace us.” Ironically, Biden claims that it was “the horror of that moment, the violence that followed, and the threat it represented for American democracy” that “drove me to run for President.”
If all that is true, Biden’s moment has come. Antisemitism is alive and well, despite the White House program, and it is gathering steam, helped by what critics have dubbed the pro-Hamas wing of the Democratic Party.
Just recently, the House of Representatives passed the Antisemitism Awareness Act; the bill relies on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism and could allow the government to withhold funding from universities that fail to prevent antisemitism on campuses. Ninety-one Democrats voted against the bill.
To show his determined stand against antisemitism, Biden could support the bill and urge the Senate to take it up. That might cost him some votes, but actions speak louder than words.
Liz Peek is a former partner of major bracket Wall Street firm Wertheim & Company.