US president says he has done more for Palestinians than anyone despite mounting death toll and destruction in Gaza.
Washington, DC – After the Israeli military bombed a school housing displaced people in central Gaza on Tuesday, a young man stood at the chaotic scene with a rocket fragment in his hand. “This is an Israeli American missile,” he said.
“We were stepping on corpses. I cannot describe the cruelty of what is happening,” the man said in a video verified by Al Jazeera after the attack in the Nuseirat area, which killed 17 civilians and injured dozens.
Such mass-casualty attacks have been a near-daily reality for Palestinians in Gaza for the past nine months. Officials and everyday people in the besieged territory have expressed outrage that the bombs decimating their lives are, in many cases, supplied by the United States as part of its alliance with Israel.
After air raids in the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis killed at least 90 Palestinians last week, the Gaza Government Media Office blamed the US directly for the attack.
But US President Joe Biden has a different view of Washington’s role in the war.
“I’m the guy that did more for the Palestinian community than anybody,” he said in an interview that aired online on Monday.
“I’m the guy that opened up all the assets. I’m the guy that made sure that I got the Egyptians to open the border… I’m the guy that’s been able to pull together the Arab states to agree to help the Palestinians with food and shelter.”
He added, “I mean, I’ve been very supportive of the Palestinians.”
The US president’s assertion was met with ridicule by Palestinian rights advocates, who stressed that Biden’s unconditional support for Israel is fuelling a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
“It’s hard to decide whether these comments by Biden were arrogant, blind or deceitful. It seems that he wants to take credit both for enabling the genocide and for letting Palestinians have a little bit of medicine and water and food,” said Amer Zahr, a Palestinian American comedian and activist.
Lexis Zeidan, a Detroit-based Palestinian American organiser, echoed that criticism.
“The only thing Biden did more for when it comes to Palestinians is increase their death toll with US-funded Israeli bombs,” she told Al Jazeera.
Armed by the US, the Israeli military has killed more than 38,000 Palestinians in Gaza and levelled large parts of the territory.
A self-proclaimed Zionist
In the same interview with journalist Speedy Morman, Biden re-asserted that he identifies as a Zionist.
“A Zionist is about whether or not Israel is a safe haven for Jews because of their history of how they’ve been persecuted,” he said.
The president then went on to ask the interviewer whether he knows what it means to be a Zionist.
Zionism is a Jewish nationalist ideology that emerged in Europe in the late 1800s, calling for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, where only a small minority of the population was Jewish at that time.
While the ideology’s supporters present it as a form of self-determination, many Palestinian rights advocates argue that Zionism has led to the dispossession and ongoing subjugation and oppression of Palestinians.
During the interview, Biden reiterated a position he often repeats while explaining his affinity for Israel: He claimed that Jews across the world would not be safe without the country.
“If there weren’t an Israel, every Jew in the world would be at risk,” he said.
Some activists say such remarks could be seen to perpetuate the anti-Semitic trope of “dual loyalty”: the idea that Jewish people must be loyal to Israel, whatever their background.
Eva Borgwardt, national spokesperson at IfNotNow, a youth-led Jewish-American progressive group, slammed the president’s comment.
“Many of us hear this repeated statement as a threat to our safety in this country. As president of the United States, it’s Biden’s job to make the US safe for everyone, including Jewish Americans,” Borgwardt told Al Jazeera in a statement.
“If he wants to keep Jews safe, he should focus on combating the real and present danger of white nationalism, instead of sending more bombs for Israel to prolong its assault on Gaza, which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and left hostages to languish in captivity.”
US support for Israel
Zahr, the Palestinian American comedian, also slammed Biden for insisting that he is a Zionist.
“After nine months, he is still defiantly and proudly calling himself a Zionist. Well, in November, he’s going to see how that word makes us vote,” Zahr told Al Jazeera.
Due to his unwavering support for Israel, Biden has struggled with key constituencies in the Democratic Party, including young people, progressives, and Arab and Muslim Americans.
His electoral woes were exasperated after a disastrous debate performance in June, where he appeared exhausted and confused at times.
While Biden and top officials in his administration often underscore their backing of Israel, the president played down that support during the interview with Morman.
Ahmad Abuznaid, the executive director of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USPCR), said Biden is claiming that he supports Palestinians because he understands that he has alienated voters in communities that support Palestinian rights.
“And so he attempted to make himself an ally of the movement when, in fact, what he’s doing is supporting the genocide of our people,” Abuznaid told Al Jazeera. “At this moment, he’s arming it. He’s defending it. He’s supporting it. And that’s how Palestinian Americans perceive President Biden and these comments. The comments are offensive. They’re disrespectful.”
Biden had boasted earlier this month that he is more popular in Israel than he is in the US. But when addressing the Arab vote with Morman, the US president falsely claimed that the US is only sending defensive weapons to Israel.
“I denied them offensive weapons that they were using, 2,000-pound (907kg) bombs and the rest,” he said.
While the US did stop a single shipment of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel this year, Biden administration officials have stressed that the transfer of other weapons has continued steadily on a regular basis.
In April, Biden signed off on $14bn in additional US military aid to Israel. And the Pentagon confirmed this week that 500-pound (226kg) bombs that were part of the suspended shipment have been separated and released to the US ally.
“Biden could stop this genocide today by turning off the tap of unlimited funds and weapons to Israel. But instead, he allows Netanyahu to do as he pleases, repeatedly calls himself a Zionist, and does what the emperor does — supports Israel unequivocally because Israel secures US interests in the Arab world,” said Hatem Abudayyeh, chair of the US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN).
“If Biden is our saviour, then who out there is our enemy?”