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At UN for Last Time, Biden Seeks to Calm Mideast Tension
US President Joe Biden addresses the 79th United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York, US, Sept. 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mike Segar
US President Joe Biden addressed world leaders at the United Nations for the final time on Tuesday, declaring that Russia’s war in Ukraine has failed and that a diplomatic solution between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah terrorist group was still possible.
With four months left in office, Biden stepped up to the green-marbled lectern at the UN General Assembly with wars in Ukraine, the Gaza Strip, and Sudan still raging and likely to outlast his presidency, which ends in January.
He sought to calm tensions as the nearly year-long war between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip now threatens to engulf Lebanon — where Israel targeted more than a thousand Hezbollah targets on Monday.
“Full scale war is not in anyone’s interest, even if situation has escalated, a diplomatic solution is still possible,” he told the 193-member UN General Assembly.
To a round of applause, Biden called on Israel and Hamas to finalize the terms of a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal put forward by the US, Qatar, and Egypt.
Biden‘s presidency has also been dominated by Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was in the assembly hall to hear Biden speak and emphasize US support for his country.
“The good news is Putin’s war has failed at his core aim. He set out to destroy Ukraine, but Ukraine is still free,” said Biden, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“We cannot grow weary, we cannot look away, and we will not let up on our support for Ukraine, not until Ukraine wins with a just, durable peace,” he said.
Russia controls just under a fifth of Ukraine, including about 80 percent of the Donbas area. Russian forces have begun storming the eastern Ukrainian town of Vuhledar, a stronghold that has resisted Russian attack since the beginning of the war, according to Russian war bloggers and state media.
Biden is due to hear from Zelenskiy about a new Ukrainian peace plan when they meet in Washington on Thursday. A US official said the plan is probably much like previous plans calling for more weaponry and support for Ukraine’s fight.
Countering China and Iran, which backs both Hamas and Hezbollah, have consumed major chunks of the president’s time.
Biden said on Tuesday that progress toward peace in the Middle East would put the world in a stronger position to deal “with the ongoing threat posed by Iran.”
“Together we must deny oxygen to its terrorist proxies … and ensure that Iran will never, ever obtain a nuclear weapon,” he said.
He said the United States was seeking to responsibly manage competition with China so it does not veer into conflict.
“We stand ready to cooperate on urgent challenges,” he said. “We recently resumed cooperation with China to stop the flow of deadly synthetic narcotics. I appreciate the collaboration. It matters for the people of my country and many others around the world.”
Biden also had strong words for the leaders of Sudan’s warring parties: “End this war now.”
CHALLENGES FOR NEXT US PRESIDENT
Biden‘s UN speech is the centerpiece event of a two-day visit to New York that includes a climate speech later on Tuesday and a meeting on Wednesday with To Lam, the president of Vietnam.
Biden has been eager to deepen relations with the strategic Southeast Asian country and manufacturing hub to counter Russia and China, with which Vietnam also retains ties.
Ukraine and Russia, Gaza, Iran, and China all figure to linger on as challenges for the next president, whether Biden‘s successor is his vice president, Kamala Harris, a Democrat, or former President Donald Trump, a Republican.
Harris’ approach to foreign policy is much like Biden‘s, although she has struck a tougher tone on the Palestinian deaths and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Trump, professing more isolationist tendencies, has little enthusiasm for supporting Ukraine’s battle to expel Russian invaders and is a firm backer of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has frayed relations with Biden.
Biden has expressed support for Israel in its drive to eliminate Hamas terrorists from Gaza but so far has been unsuccessful in his bid to negotiate a ceasefire-for-hostages deal and no breakthrough is in sight.
Under Biden‘s leadership, the United States has funneled millions of dollars in American weaponry to Ukraine and rallied NATO solidarity behind Kyiv. But the conflict is largely at a stalemate with Russia hanging on to parts of eastern Ukraine it seized early in the war.
The post At UN for Last Time, Biden Seeks to Calm Mideast Tension first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Treasure Trove: An Israeli stamp reflects the complex mix of emotions about Oct. 7
Michelle Shalmiev was born in a village in the Caucasian mountains and immigrated to Israel and settled on a kibbutz when she was 14. Her series “Putting Your Stamp on History” […]
The post Treasure Trove: An Israeli stamp reflects the complex mix of emotions about Oct. 7 appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Download a special Oct. 7 print edition of The Canadian Jewish News
Printable obituaries of eight Canadian victims and more of our original coverage.
The post Download a special Oct. 7 print edition of The Canadian Jewish News appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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The Jewish People Perform Another Miracle
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is seen addressing supporters, in Beirut, Lebanon. Photo: Reuters.
JNS.org – This Oct. 7 will not only be an anniversary of tears, of pure contrition, even if the memory is burning as the people of Israel live. As to how, it wasn’t at all obvious. Our whole history is made of miracles—from the splitting of the sea to escape from the Egyptians to the Inquisition to the pogroms to the thousand other genocidal attacks to which the Jews have been subjected. In every case, the results are always incredible and surprising, especially for how we have emerged active, faithful to our Torah tradition and committed to the return to Jerusalem until we made it happen.
The War of Independence in 1948 was fought by concentration-camp veterans, yet we defeated all the Arab armies, united in hatred, who marched against us. Later, in 1967, 1973 wars were won by a hair’s breadth with miraculous strokes of imagination and leaders who gave birth to ideas that people would have expected. No one would have ever bet a euro, penny or shekel on the idea that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and his entire hierarchy could be eliminated, petrifying Iran, especially since we have already reduced its other favorite proxy, Hamas, to pieces. And now we have bombed Iran’s other proxy, the Houthis, some 2,000 kilometers away, destroying the airport from which they receive their weapons and aid from the ayatollahs. The Islamic Republic’s leader, Ali Khamenei, is reportedly hiding underground, the Iraqi and Syrian Shi’ites are waiting to see if they are next, and cities controlled by Tehran are shaking.
As President Joe Biden said, it is a measure of justice, but one that Israel has undertaken in an impossible fashion, defending its citizens amid a thousand prohibitions with determination and without fear. Only in this way can a 76-year-old young state, which has been attacked from all sides, defend itself. The country’s existence is the latest chapter in the history of a people born many millennia ago in the Land of Israel, who are finally back home and defending their state.
The war is certainly not over, as Hezbollah reportedly had 100,000 fighters. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows that he must see this fight through to the end, despite the international pressure to which Israel has been subjected for nearly a year. Israel’s leadership understands that its very existence is at definitive risk if there is no “new Middle East” in the aftermath of Oct. 7.
While previous generations and Israeli leaders hoped that peace agreements would establish peace in the region, today’s leaders know that there is also a need for battle to stop those who, dominated by absurd fanatical and religious beliefs, wish to kill you. (After all, what do the Houthi rebels in Yemen have to do with the Jews and Israel?)
This is the lesson of our time—not just for Israel and the Jewish people but for everyone. The Jewish people are writing a new page in history, one in which the free world must write and fight alongside them, as it is a battle for the survival of Western ideals. Israel has eliminated the two most dangerous terrorist groups in the world—Hamas and Hezbollah—with operations that will set a precedent for decades. And it challenges Iran. I would like to hear the applause, please.
The post The Jewish People Perform Another Miracle first appeared on Algemeiner.com.