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Prominent news outlets such as The New York Times and CBS have hailed President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address as “raucous” and “defiant.” Particularly, the media have been highlighting a specific announcement from the Biden administration to build a temporary emergency port off the Gaza coast to deliver humanitarian aid.
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While it’s a great step forward that the United States is finally providing humanitarian aid to people living in the Gaza Strip, which has been facing the deaths of children due to starvation, it’s not enough.
“The point is Biden needs to — and morally should — take a stronger stance against Israel if he wants to beat Donald Trump in November, and we need to stop praising him for this port and call it what it really is.”
The Biden administration has sent billions of dollars to Israel to directly support the military while simultaneously giving almost no aid to Gaza and vetoing a ceasefire resolution repeatedly in the United Nations. The only reason Biden is deciding to do this now is not that he’s secretly a compassionate man with a big heart but that he is deeply unpopular right now with young voters, and he was just shown that in the primary election.
Biden won his 2020 campaign because of states like Michigan, where the uncommitted delegates movement first took off. In 2016, Hillary Clinton was unable to secure crucial swing states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Arizona, which Biden was able to pick up in 2020 by the skin of his teeth.
He is realizing he needs to step back from such a supportive position with Israel before November, or he will lose a lot of the youth vote — not to mention many other groups of voters — enough to swing an election.
You’re probably thinking, “Caden, he is a president in the middle of an election season; of course he is going to do what he needs to win,” but this falls short of accurately demonstrating Generation Z’s exhaustion with Biden. It’s not only the Israel-Hamas war; it’s also climate change, Biden’s age and a largely absent vice president who has not been helping with this disconnect.
This aid plan, quite frankly, is a half-assed solution to placate the Democratic Party and is not going to work on Gen Z. Furthermore, thousands of innocent civilians continue to be brutally murdered or starved to death.
Plain and simple, the U.S. and Biden are responsible for the current disaster he claims to have so much sympathy for.
The point is Biden needs to — and morally should — take a stronger stance against Israel if he wants to beat Donald Trump in November, and we need to stop praising him for this port and call it what it really is.
This isn’t a pro-Israel or pro-Palestine argument anymore. It hasn’t been for a while; it’s an emergency that needs to be stopped with the same amount of condemnation the U.S. has been serving Russia and the same amount of aid it has been giving Ukraine.
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When I speak to my friends or classmates, Biden is largely described as evil, and why should he not be?
Repeatedly and single-handedly, the United States has stopped peace from happening for both Israelis and Palestinians, whether it’s through our military shipments to Israel or vetoing ceasefire resolutions and downplaying the genocide on the world stage.
So no, Mr. President, I am not super thrilled that when given numerous chances to help the people of Gaza, you instead decided to cash in politically with a temporary solution you know damn well won’t end the suffering anytime soon. All that Biden’s State of the Union gave us was confirmation that Biden will continue to do whatever the fuck he wants because we, once again, have the two shittiest options for president on planet Earth.
Reach Caden Proulx at letters@collegian.com or on Twitter @CSUCollegian.
