Biden Defends Israel’s Right to Exist, Calls for Two-State Solution in Final U.N. Address
- Michael Foust Crosswalk Headlines Contributor
- Published Sep 24, 2024
President Biden delivered what likely will be his final speech to the United Nations on Tuesday as he defended Israel's right to exist while again calling for a two-state solution that was rejected this year by leaders within the Jewish state.
"The world must not flinch from the horrors of Oct. 7 -- any country, any country would have the right and responsibility to ensure that such an attack could never happen again," Biden told U.N. members. "Thousands of armed Hamas terrorists invaded a sovereign state, slaughtering and massacring more than 1,200 people, including 46 Americans, in their homes and at a music festival."
Biden referenced "despicable acts of sexual violence" and "250 innocents taken hostage" during the 2023 attack on Israel.
He then turned to the situation in Gaza.
"Thousands killed, including aid workers," he said of Gaza. "Too many families [were] dislocated, crowding in the tents [and] facing a dire humanitarian situation. They didn't ask for this war that Hamas started."
It is time, he insisted, for both sides to agree to a peace deal he offered through Qatar and Egypt.
"As we look ahead, we must also address the rise of violence against innocent Palestinians on the West Bank, accept the conditions for a better future, including a two-state solution for the world, where Israel enjoys security and peace and full recognition and normalized relations with all its neighbors, [and] where Palestinians live in security, dignity and self-determination in a state of their own."
This summer, Israel's Knesset rejected a two-state solution by a vote of 68-9, arguing it would "pose an existential danger to the State of Israel" by turning the Palestinian state into a "radical Islamic terrorist base."
On Ukraine, Biden said Russian President Vladimir Putin had failed.
"He set out to destroy Ukraine, but Ukraine is still free. He set out to weaken NATO, but NATO is bigger, stronger, more united than ever before, with two new members in Finland and Sweden. … The world now has another choice to make. Will we sustain our support to help Ukraine win this war and preserve its freedom? Or walk away and let aggression be renewed, and a nation be destroyed? I know my answer. We cannot grow weary. We cannot look away."
Meanwhile, Biden also warned the world about the dangers of artificial intelligence.
"We'll see more technological change, I argue, in the next two to 10 years than we have in the last 50 years," he said. "Artificial intelligence is going to change our ways of life, our ways of work, and our ways of war. It could usher in scientific progress at a pace never seen before, and much of it could make our lives better. But AI also brings profound risks, from deep fakes to disinformation, to novel pathogens, to bioweapons."
The world, he said, must ensure that AI "supports rather than undermines the core principles that human life has value and all humans deserve dignity."
"We must make certain that the awesome capabilities of AI will be used to uplift and empower everyday people -- not to give dictators more powerful shackles on the human spirit."
Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/Alex Wong/Staff
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
