‘Order must prevail on campuses,’ Joe Biden tells America

The US President says the protests have not changed his policy on Israel and Gaza.

Supporters of Israel confront pro-Palestinian demonstrators outside The New School in lower Manhattan on Thursday. Picture: AFP

President Joe Biden said “order must prevail” as he insisted the student protests at campuses across the US had not changed his policy on Israel.

In a rare comment by the President on the college demonstrations that began at Columbia University on April 17, Mr Biden said dissent was the backbone of American democracy but condemned incidents of violence and hate speech on campus.

“We are not an authoritarian nation where we silence people or squash dissent … but neither are we a lawless country,” he said from the White House. “We’re a civil ­society, and order must prevail. There’s the right to protest, but not the right to cause chaos.”

Mr Biden said the protests had not prompted him to reconsider his approach to the war in Gaza. The President has publicly criticised Israel’s assault on the Palestinian territory, where the death toll is nearing 35,000 according to the Hamas-run health ministry, but he has continued to supply ­Israel with weapons and insisted that his support for America’s ally is “ironclad”.

The White House denied Mr Biden was moved to speak on the protests himself, rather than leaving it to his spokespeople, by ­Donald Trump’s statement on the demonstrations on Wednesday. “It has nothing to do with following anyone’s lead,” Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said. “The President if anything has been a leader on this … and he wanted to make sure his voice once again was very clear.”

At a campaign rally Mr Trump suggested that by allowing Palestinian refugees from Gaza into the America, Mr Biden was leading the country into an “October 7-style attack” on US soil. The former president claimed Mr Biden was planning to bring “massive numbers” of Palestinians to the US. The White House dismissed Mr Trump’s claim, saying it was only considering admitting Palestinians from Gaza who had relatives either already living in the US or who were American citizens.

In the latest sign that America’s campuses are souring on the President, students and professors at a Georgia university urged him to call off his graduation address scheduled for later this month.

Some Morehouse College professors have said they will refuse to share the stage with the President if he appears at the historically black men’s college in Georgia on May 19. One has said that the invitation for Mr Biden to make the commencement address to students at Morehouse, whose alumni include Martin Luther King, was a “moral disaster”.

The White House insists Mr Biden has no plans to cancel the speech, and Morehouse said it will not rescind the invitation.

Before the election showdown with Mr Trump on November 5, Mr Biden is seeking to shore up support among black voters who were critical to his victories in battleground states like Georgia four years ago. Some at Morehouse view his appearance as a cynical attempt to drum up votes.

Miles Ross, a Morehouse student, said Mr Biden’s visit was “clearly a political move”, adding: “I’m totally against it. People feel very strongly about what’s going on with Palestine, Gaza … especially here on campus. So if he starts to talk about anything like that … he’s going to open himself up to a lot of scrutiny and criticism.”

About 80 faculty members joined an online meeting last week to air their concerns about the President’s visit. Many fear his presence and ensuing protests will overshadow a day of celebration for hundreds of students.

The White House has brushed off suggestions the President could be walking into a public relations disaster in Georgia, insisting that he was looking forward to the trip, particularly because of Morehouse’s connection with King.

“Joe Biden came of age in the civil rights movement and his whole world view was formed as being part of the protest movement,” Tom Perez, a senior adviser to the President, said this week.

The Times