Biden to deliver speech on antisemitism at Holocaust memorial ceremony

President Biden will speak next week on Capitol Hill about the rise of antisemitism, tackling an issue that has been intertwined with ongoing protests on college campuses over Israel’s war in Gaza.

Biden will deliver the keynote address at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s annual Days of Remembrance ceremony, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.

He will discuss “our moral duty to combat the rising scourge of antisemitism,” and how his administration is implementing a national strategy to combat hate against Jews, she said.

Those remarks will come as protests across the country over the war in Gaza have reached a boiling point, with the White House and lawmakers criticizing aspects of those demonstrations as promoting antisemitism.

The president, in some of his only public comments on the protests, told reporters last week that he condemned antisemitism, as well as those who did not understand what was happening with Palestinians in Gaza.

The Anti-Defamation League has reported an enormous spike in antisemitic incidents in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, and the Biden administration has taken steps to try to mitigate the resulting threats against Jews.

Israel has carried out military operations in Gaza following last October’s terrorist attacks by the Palestinian militant group that killed roughly 1,000 Israelis. But tens of thousands of Palestinians have died in the subsequent fighting and shelling in Gaza, and the war there has created a humanitarian crisis as citizens are left without access to adequate food, water and medicine.

The Associated Press reported that roughly 1,000 individuals have been arrested on college campuses amid ongoing protests over the war in Gaza, most notably at Columbia University, where police moved to forcibly clear protesters from a campus building late Tuesday.

Biden has tried to walk a careful line, defending Israel’s right to respond to Hamas and repeatedly condemning antisemitism in the wake of the attack. But, at the same time, he is also calling for Israel to allow more aid into Gaza and urging the country to do more to protect civilians.