The White House has issued a direct response to Hamas after the Palestinian movement expressed to Newsweek its support for growing protests erupting across U.S. universities in solidarity with Gaza amid the ongoing war with Israel.
With demonstrations and police crackdowns spreading across campuses nationwide, Hamas senior official and spokesperson Bassem Naim told Newsweek on Wednesday that his group believed "any popular movement demanding an end to the aggression and genocide against our people are useful and supportive activities for our cause."
He also specifically criticized President Joe Biden's handling of the matter, stating that "the American administration's attempts to suppress these activities will not change the reality of the situation, whether regarding the justice of the Palestinian cause or the brutality and racism of the Israeli occupation."
The following day, White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates hit back at Naim's remarks, discrediting the group and considering its criticism a badge of honor for the Biden administration.
"Hamas is a vicious terrorist organization that has spent decades murdering innocents," Bates told Newsweek. "Hamas perpetrated the deadliest massacre of the Jewish people since the Holocaust, which makes them the least credible voice that exists on this subject."
"Hamas' disapproval, after their acts of 'unadulterated evil'—which they've pledged to repeat "again and again"—is a testament to President Biden's moral clarity," he added. "President Biden has stood against Antisemitism his entire life. And he will never stop. That's why he is carrying out the first-ever national strategy to combat Antisemitism."
Hundreds of students have been arrested across the country since demonstrations intensified last week with law enforcement storming a pro-Palestinian protest encampment at Columbia University.
Supporters have accused university leadership and authorities of attempting to suppress freedom of expression and assembly, while critics have called for even tougher measures to combat alleged hate speech and calls for violence among protesters. The Biden administration has sought to walk a careful line in seeking to address the issue but has been hit with criticism from both sides.
During a visit to Columbia University on Tuesday, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson called on Biden to send in the National Guard to break up the protests, which continued to rage around him on campus.
In response, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Wednesday that such a decision is up to state governors. She also reiterated the president's positions that "antisemitism basically is wrong and that we should call that out, and there is no place—no place—for hate or hateful rhetoric or any type of violence, obviously."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also stated that "more needs to be done" to temper the swelling U.S. protest movement, through which he argued that "Antisemitic mobs have taken over leading universities" and "call for the annihilation of Israel."
The comments led to a tense exchange at a State Department press briefing on Thursday, where deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel deflected the notion that Netanyahu's words constituted meddling by a foreign leader in U.S. domestic affairs. Patel said he would not equate the Israeli leader's remarks to "interfering," and that "the prime minister is welcome to make whatever comments he'd like."
"When it comes to what is happening in this country, we're going to remain focused on that," he added.
He also recounted the Biden administration's efforts to separate accepted forms of protest from those that warranted action.
"We, of course, support the right of anybody to peacefully protest, to demonstration, to make their voices heard, to express themselves in a peaceful and non-violent way," Patel said. "However, we also believe that harmful rhetoric, rhetoric be it rooted in antisemitism or Islamophobia, is incredibly problematic and needs to be condemned and called out against."
The Biden administration has also found itself facing tough questions when it comes to the war itself in Gaza. U.S. officials have expressed stalwart support for Israel's goal of defeating Hamas and rescuing more than 130 hostages still held by the group, but they have also increasingly demanded that Israel do more to protect civilians and to expand the flow of aid into the war-torn Palestinian territory.
Israeli officials estimate that more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed in the initial Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, with more than 600 soldiers killed in the ensuing ground offensive in Gaza. The Palestinian Health Ministry in Hamas-held Gaza has placed the death toll there at over 34,000, the majority of them being women and children.
The Biden administration has called on Israel not to move forward with a planned ground incursion into the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians are believed to have taken shelter. Netanyahu has vowed to move forward with the operation with or without U.S. support.
Meanwhile, Tehran, too, has criticized the U.S. handling of the pro-Palestinian protests, with Middle East tensions further exacerbated over a recent direct exchange of attacks between Israel and Iran, which has supported Hamas and other Palestinian factions, along with "Axis of Resistance" militias conducting attacks on Israel from Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
"The suppression and violent treatment of the American police and security forces against professors and students protesting the genocide and war crimes of the Israeli regime in various universities of the United States is deeply worrying and disgusted by the public opinion of the world," Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in a statement Thursday.
"This repression is in line with the continuation of Washington's full-fledged support for the Israeli regime," he added, "and clearly shows the double standard policy and contradictory attitude of the American government towards freedom of expression."
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Based in his hometown of Staten Island, New York City, Tom O'Connor is an award-winning Senior Writer of Foreign Policy ... Read more
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