The president of the United States, Joe Biden, This Thursday condemned the violence in the university protests against the war in Gaza and stated: “Violent protest is not protected, peaceful protest is.”
Biden made these statements during an urgently called speech at the White House that did not appear in the official agenda that the press office sent to the media last night.
In statements lasting just three minutes, The president defended the right of students to demonstratebut insisted that “order must prevail” in the face of the riots that have occurred in recent days on university campuses across the country with hundreds of arrests.
“Violent protest is not protected, peaceful protest is. It is illegal when violence occurs. Destroying property is not a peaceful protest, it is illegal. Vandalism, break-ins, breaking windows, paralyzing campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations. None of this is a peaceful protest,” he emphasized.
“Threatening people, intimidating them, instilling fear in them is not a peaceful protest. It is illegal“, he stressed.
Biden stated that “dissent is essential to democracy,” but dissent “should never lead to disorder and should never result in the denial of the rights that other students have to finish the semester and their college education.”
The president, who had remained silent in recent days about the spread of protests across the country, stated that on university campuses “there is no place for hate speech or violence of any kind,” whether “ anti-Semitism, Islamophobia” or discrimination against students of Arab or Palestinian origin.
At the end of his speech, Biden responded with a dry “no” when a reporter asked him if the university protests had made him reconsider his policies toward Israel..
He also answered negatively when asked if National Guard reservists should intervene in these protests, something that the governor of Texas, Republican Greg Abbott, resorted to to repress the protesters at the University of Texas at Austin.
The last time Biden spoke about the protests was on April 22when, in response to questions from journalists, he said he condemned “anti-Semitic protests” and “those who do not understand what is happening to the Palestinians.”
Hundreds of students have been arrested in protests, encampments and occupations of buildings in pro-Palestinian protests throughout the country, after harsh interventions by riot police in actions that have generally been peaceful, but that their critics have branded as anti-Semitic and organized by external agents.
With information from EFE.
Keep reading:
– Columbia, Harvard, Emory: How anti-Gaza war protests spread across major universities
– “We are afraid that the US will deport us for protesting at the university against the war in Gaza”
– Protests over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza spread to more universities