On the last full day of his presidency, Joe Biden lauded the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and defended his continued support of Israel throughout the war in Gaza.
“After so much pain, destruction and loss of life, today the guns in Gaza have gone silent,” Biden shared on Sunday.
The outgoing president went on to claim that the path he walked, supplying billions of dollars in military aid for Israel even as the picture of the devastation in Gaza grew grimmer, was solely responsible for a ceasefire deal getting done.
“I’ve worked in foreign policy for decades and this is one of the toughest negotiations I’ve been a part of,” he said. “But we’ve reached this point today because of the pressure Israel built on Hamas, backed by the United States.”
Many Democratic Party supporters attempted to pressure Biden to relent in his support of Israel as the war dragged on. Campus protests of U.S. support for Israel became a fixture of the nightly news and the campaign trail. Biden held true to his ally in the Middle East even as American public opinion turned against the war.
With the start of a six-week ceasefire and the Republican Party taking over Congress and the White House, Biden still feels his strategy was correct.
“Abandoning the course that I was on would not have led us to the ceasefire we’re seeing today,” he said.
Biden hoped that the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump would continue to aid Israel and Hamas through the tricky negotiations built into the ceasefire. Biden pointed to the way that Trump and Biden’s envoys were able to work together in recent negotiations as a model.
“It now falls to the next administration to help implement this deal,” Biden said. “I was pleased to have our teams speak as one voice in the final days. It was both necessary and effective and unprecedented. But success is going to require persistence. And continuing support for our friends in the region, and the belief in diplomacy backed by deterrence.”
Watch the entire speech below:
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