Biden condemns surge in antisemitism, renews support of Israeli cause

President scolds Hamas during a ceremony remembering Holocaust.

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Tuesday decried a “ferocious surge” in antisemitism on college campuses and around the globe in the months since Hamas attacked Israel and triggered a war in Gaza, using a ceremony to remember victims of the Holocaust to also denounce new waves of violence and hateful rhetoric toward Jews.

Biden said that on Oct. 7, Hamas “brought to life” that hatred with the killing of more than 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, and warned that people already are beginning to forget who was responsible.

The president used his address to renew his declarations of unwavering support for Israel in its war against Hamas, even as his relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has grown increasingly strained over Israel’s push to invade the southern Gaza city of Rafah, which will surely worsen the already-dire humanitarian crisis for Palestinians.

Biden has struggled to balance his support for Israel since the attack by Hamas — the deadliest day for Jews worldwide since the Holocaust — with his efforts to protect civilian life in Gaza.

While acknowledging that Tuesday’s ceremony was taking place during “difficult times,” Biden made no explicit reference to the deaths of more than 34,700 Palestinians since the attack by Hamas led Israel to declare war in Gaza. The tally from the Hamas-run health ministry includes militants, but also many civilians caught up in the fighting.

“My commitment to the safety of the Jewish people, the security of Israel, and its right to exist as an independent Jewish state is ironclad, even when we disagree,” Biden said.

“We’re at risk of people not knowing the truth,” Biden said of the horrors of the Holocaust, when 6 million Jews were systematically killed by Nazi Germany and its collaborators. “This hatred continues to lie deep in the hearts of too many people in the world.”

Biden steered clear of the upcoming presidential election in his speech. But it played out in counterpoint to former President Donald Trump’s criticism of Biden for not doing more to combat antisemitism. Trump, though, has a long history of rhetoric that invokes the language of Nazi Germany.