NEW YORK \u2014 President Joe Biden on Tuesday forcefully touted his record of rebuilding alliances and defending democracy around the globe, as Israeli strikes in Lebanon and the growing threat of a regional war in the Middle East cast a pall over his final United Nations address.<\/p>\n
Biden reflected on the arc of his five-decade political career and said he believed the world was at an \u201cinflection point\u201d given the myriad conflicts unspooling across the globe, including wars in Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan.<\/p>\n
The president also cast his decision this summer not to seek a second term as one that continued his push to protect democracy, which he called one of the driving goals of his presidency. \u201cMy fellow leaders, let us never forget \u2014 some things are more important than staying in power,\u201d Biden told the assembled heads of state. \u201cIt\u2019s your people that matter the most. Never forget, we are here to serve the people, not the other way around.\u201d<\/p>\n
But looming over Biden\u2019s speech \u2014 in which he touted his work defending Ukraine and combating climate change, among other things \u2014 was the quickly escalating violence between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.<\/p>\n
Israeli strikes in Lebanon this week have killed more than 550 people, including 50 children, according to Lebanon\u2019s Health Ministry, and Israeli officials have said they are turning to a new phase of the war focused on the country\u2019s northern border with Lebanon rather than its southern border with Gaza.<\/p>\n
\u201cFull scale war is not in anyone\u2019s interest. The situation has escalated,\u201d Biden said. \u201cA solution is still possible. In fact, it remains the only path to lasting security and to allow the residents of both countries to return to their homes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel after the Oct. 7 attacks, forcing Israel to evacuate some 67,500 people from its northern communities, according to the Taub Center, and many of those towns remain empty. Israel\u2019s retaliatory strikes on southern Lebanon have displaced more than 111,000 people, according to the United Nations.<\/p>\n
Biden has focused most of his administration\u2019s diplomatic efforts on trying to achieve a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, based in Gaza, and he defended those efforts Tuesday. \u201cNow is the time for the parties to finalize the terms,\u201d Biden said. \u201cBring the hostages home, secure security for Israel and Gaza free of Hamas\u2019s grip, ease the suffering in Gaza, and end this war.\u201d<\/p>\n
But senior U.S. officials acknowledge privately that a cease-fire in Gaza is increasingly elusive, saying that neither side appears to truly want a deal. Hezbollah has vowed to continue firing rockets into Israel as long as the war continues, and now Israeli officials have vowed to eliminate the threat on their northern border and have significantly escalated attacks in recent days.<\/p>\n
At the United Nations, Biden recounted the Oct. 7 attack, when Hamas militants broke through the Israel-Gaza border fence and killed 1,200 people and took some 250 hostage. He also spoke of Palestinian suffering under Israel\u2019s retaliatory military campaign, which has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, as well as resulted in mass displacement and fueled an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in the enclave.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe world must not flinch from the horrors of Oct. 7. Any country \u2014 any country \u2014 would have the right and responsibility to ensure that such an attack can never happen again,\u201d Biden said, noting that he has met and grieved with hostage families, who are \u201cgoing through hell.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cInnocent civilians in Gaza are also going through hell. Thousands and thousands killed, including aid workers. Too many families dislocated, crowding into tents, facing a dire humanitarian situation. They didn\u2019t ask for this war Hamas started.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first Arab leader to address the gathering, Jordan\u2019s King Abdullah II, recounted the pain of witnessing the suffering of the conflict and warned that it could get worse as Israel steps up its bombardment of Lebanon.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Israeli government\u2019s assault has resulted in one of the fastest death rates in recent conflicts, one of the fastest rates of starvation caused by war, the largest cohort of child amputees and unprecedented levels of destruction,\u201d Abdullah said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe world is watching, and history will judge us by the courage we show,\u201d he added. \u201cAnd it is not just the future that will hold us accountable. So will the people of the here and now.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Abdullah was careful not to criticize the United States directly, his comments reflected the frustration among many U.S. allies, including Arab nations and those in the Global South, at Biden\u2019s policy of providing largely unconditional military support to Israel, even as the death toll in Gaza has grown.<\/p>\n
Israel has said it has little choice but to try to eradicate Hamas in Gaza and that the high death toll is a direct result of the militant group\u2019s strategy of embedding among civilians. Still, many human rights and aid groups say Israel has done little to guard against civilian casualties and has actively obstructed aid.<\/p>\n
Biden spent much of Monday\u2019s speech, which was intended in large part to highlight his legacy as a global leader, focusing on his administration\u2019s work defending Ukraine against Russia\u2019s invasion, as he urged the United Nations to \u201cstand firm against aggression.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, recognized Russia\u2019s invasion as \u201can assault on everything this institution is supposed to stand for.\u201d While describing his Ukraine policy as a success, Biden warned that Russia still has a path to victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe world now has another choice to make. Will we sustain our support to help Ukraine win this war and preserve its freedom \u2014 or walk away, let aggression be renewed and a nation be destroyed?\u201d Biden told the leaders, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who sat in the grand hall, unsmiling, a translation headset on his ear.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know my answer,\u201d Biden said. \u201cWe cannot grow weary. We cannot look away, and we will not let up on our support for Ukraine, not until Ukraine wins a just and durable peace.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, Russia has recently been making gains in Ukraine\u2019s east. With winter looming, some allies of Ukraine fear the country could be pushed into making concessions to Russia to end the war, and Biden is facing pressure to allow American-made missile systems to strike deeper into Russian territory.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian leaders have made that policy change a top priority in recent weeks, and many European leaders agree with them. The issue has opened cracks inside the Biden administration, with the Defense Department and White House aides skeptical of the benefits of such a policy shift and Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressing openness on a trip to Kyiv this month.<\/p>\n
Zelensky plans to continue to press the issue this week, including at White House meetings with Biden and Harris on Thursday. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer \u2014 who also quietly favors a policy shift \u2014 plans to continue discussions about it during this week\u2019s U.N. activities in New York.<\/p>\n
As he wrapped his speech, Biden reflected on his decision to step aside this summer and end his campaign for a second term. \u201cIt was a difficult decision,\u201d Biden said. \u201cBeing president has been the honor of my life. There\u2019s so much more I want to get done.\u201d<\/p>\n
But he said that after 50 years of public service, he decided it was time for a new generation of leadership. \u201cIt\u2019s your people that matter most,\u201d Biden said. \u201cThat\u2019s the soul of democracy. It does not belong to any one country.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
NEW YORK \u2014 President Joe Biden on Tuesday forcefully touted his record of rebuilding alliances and defending democracy around the globe, as Israeli strikes in Lebanon and the growing threat of a regional war in the Middle East cast a pall over his final United Nations address. Biden reflected on the arc of his five-decade […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":10052,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}