US President Joe Biden promised on Sunday to listen to “peaceful and non-violent protests” against Israel’s war in Gaza, during a visit to the university where Martin Luther King studied intended to seduce the African-American and young electorate.
“I support peaceful, non-violent protests. Your voices need to be heard, and I promise you that I will hear them,” the president said during the graduation ceremony at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia.
While he spoke, a handful of students turned their backs on Joe Biden and waved Palestinian flags, to symbolize their opposition to his policy of support, including military support, for Israel, a historic ally of the United States.
Students at the historically African-American university had asked their administration to cancel the Democrat’s speech.
During his speech, Joe Biden also called for a ceasefire in Gaza and the return of Israeli hostages captured on October 7 by Hamas, while the Israeli army intensifies its strikes there and the fighting continues. still angry.
The Democratic president assured that he was working for “a lasting peace” throughout the region, including “a two-state solution” with the creation of a Palestinian state, “the only solution”.
“This is one of the most difficult and complex problems in the world. There is nothing easy about this situation,” said the Democratic president, who wore a brown and black robe, the colors of Morehouse College.
“I know this angers and frustrates many of you, including my family, but most of all I know it breaks your heart. It breaks mine too,” he assured, in an apparent allusion to his wife Jill, who according to the American media expressed her concerns to him about the increasingly high number of victims in the civilian population in Gaza.
Young people and African Americans
By coming to Morehouse, Joe Biden wanted to pay tribute to the hero of the civil rights movement who studied there, but students pointed out that Martin Luther King opposed the war and in particular that of Vietnam in the 1960s .
The Democratic president initially remained silent on the pro-Palestinian demonstrations, before declaring that “order must prevail” on American campuses where the police intervened to evict encampments.
But the United States’ historic support for Israel makes the Democratic camp fear losing votes among the young electorate and supporters of the Palestinian cause.
More generally, polls show broader difficulties for the 81-year-old Democrat in winning the support of black voters and young Americans, two groups who helped him defeat his rival Donald Trump in 2020 and which will be decisive again this year to prevent a return of the Republican to the White House.
According to a recent New York Times / Siena poll, Donald Trump could collect the votes of 20% of African-Americans in November, approximately double that of 2020. This would be a record for a Republican candidate and a disavowal for his Democratic opponent.
Without naming his opponent, Joe Biden insisted on the protection of democracy and the fight against racism, themes on which he wants to embody the antithesis of Donald Trump.
“This is what we have to confront: extremist forces that oppose the message and the meaning of Morehouse,” said Joe Biden.
This week, he also received in the Oval Office personalities and parents of plaintiffs in the case called “Brown v. Board of Education” (Brown v. Topeka Board of Education), which resulted in a landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling outlawing school segregation, a turning point in the state civil rights movement. -United.
The American president continued his campaign trip to Detroit (northeast), where he visited a cafe owned by two former NBA players, brothers Joe and Jordan Crawford.
“The guys we’re competing against want to undo all the progress we’ve made,” he said.
He was to address the country’s main civil rights association, the NAACP.
