Biden Condemns Antisemitism in Holocaust Remembrance Ceremony

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Tuesday condemned the “ferocious surge of antisemitism” in the United States following the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas that killed 1,200 Israelis, urging Americans not to “surrender our future to the horrors of the past.”

Speaking at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Days of Remembrance, Biden pressed his fellow countrymen and women to learn the lessons of “one of the darkest chapters in human history.”

“In my view, the major lesson of the Holocaust is that it was not inevitable,” he added moments later from a stage set up in Emancipation Hall in the U.S. Capitol. “We know hate never goes away. It only hides … and given a little oxygen, it comes out from under the rocks.

“We also know what stops it. One thing. All of us,” Biden continued. “We have an obligation to learn the lessons of history and not give safe haven to hatred against anyone.”

While he was commemorating the victims of crimes committed 80 years ago or more, Biden said he feared people are forgetting hate crimes against Jews of more recent vintage.

“People are already forgetting … that Hamas unleashed this terror,” he said of the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel.

“It was Hamas that brutalized Israelis. It was Hamas that took and continues to hold hostages. I have not forgotten,” he said.

The president also spoke of the pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses across the country, and those among the protesters who have engaged in or incited hate speech and violence, saying, “It’s moments like this that test the principles that are the very foundation of our democracy.

“I understand people have strong beliefs and deep convictions about the world and America,” he said. “In America, we respect and protect the fundamental right to free speech, to debate, disagree, and to protest peacefully and make our voices heard.

“But there is no place on any campus in America, any place in America, for antisemitism or hate speech or threats of violence of any kind,” he said.

The president went on to say that attacks on other individuals and riots that lead to the destruction of property are not peaceful protests nor protected speech.

“It’s against the law,” he said. “We’re a civil society. We uphold the rule of law, and no one should have to hide or be brave just to be themselves.”

Biden closed his remarks with words of assurance to the Jewish community, saying he wanted its members to know, “I see your fear, your hurt and your pain.”

“Let me assure you, as your president,” he said, “you are not alone. You belong. You always have and you always will.”

The president vowed that his commitment to the security of Israel “and its right to exist as an independent Jewish state is ironclad. Even when we disagree,” a reference to the disagreements with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over how to prosecute the effort to eradicate Hamas from Gaza.

He then recalled the words of former Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., a holocaust survivor who served in Congress from January 1981 until his death in February 2008.

Lantos is remembered for, among other things, observing that “the veneer of civilization is paper thin. We are its guardians, and we can never rest.”

“We must be those guardians,” the president said. “We must never rest. We must rise against hate, meet across the divide and see our common humanity.”

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