“How do you apologize for genocide when you are committing genocide in Palestine?”
This is what a pro-Palestine activist shouted at US President Joe Biden, who was delivering a speech in Arizona, apologizing for the authority’s role in running boarding schools that abused Native Americans (Red Indians) for more than 150 years.
As for Biden, he tried to overcome the situation, and replied, “Many innocent people are being killed, and this must stop.”
What’s the story?
Biden was giving an outdoor speech at a sports field in the village of Lavin, Arizona, and he was talking about what happened to indigenous people, saying, “This is one of the most important things I have had the opportunity to do in my entire professional life… It is a sin that is stuck in our souls… I formally apologize.”
The audience was a few hundred people, many of them wearing traditional tribal dress. They cheered when Biden apologized for the trauma generations of Native Americans have faced at residential schools across the country.
Friday’s visit was the first for Democratic President Biden to go to a Native American province while he was in office, and it is part of his efforts to strengthen his legacy in his final months remaining in the White House.
Arizona is also one of the seven swing states in a tight race in the US elections that will be held on November 5, in which his deputy, Kamala Harris, will compete for the Democratic Party, facing former President Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s candidate.
The position on Palestine
The activist who interrupted Biden and reminded him of what was happening in Palestine was speaking against the background of the position of the American authorities on what is happening there.
US support for Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon after the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 led to months of protests across the United States, according to Reuters news agency.
Human rights defenders demanded a ban on arms exports to Israel because tens of thousands of civilians were killed in the region, while Palestinians in the Gaza Strip suffer from hunger and disease.
Israel and Washington deny the accusations against Israel in the International Court of Justice of committing genocide in relation to Gaza, and Washington continues to support its ally.
