By Servet Gunerigok
WASHINGTON (AA) - President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that antisemitism has no place in America during a speech linking the Holocaust to Hamas’s attack on Israel last year.
In his address at the US Capitol to mark the US Holocaust Memorial Museum's annual Days of Remembrance ceremony, Biden said he has seen "a ferocious surge of anti-Semitism in America and around the world."
"In America, we respect and protect a fundamental right to free speech, to debate disagree, to protest peacefully and make our voices heard. But there is no place on any campus in America - or any place in America - for antisemitism or hate speech or threats of violence of any time," said the US president.
His remarks came amid pro-Palestine college campus protests that have been persistent since April 7, when students with Columbia University began an encampment in solidarity with Gaza and demand their school divest from Israel.
Nearly 2,500 protesters were arrested during the demonstrations.
Arguing that students damaged campus buildings and violent scenes occurred on some campuses, Biden said such demonstrations were against the law.
“Violent attacks, destroying property is not peaceful protest. It’s against the law. And we’re not a lawless country, we’re a civil society. We uphold the rule of law,” Biden said.
The US president has repeatedly said that he defends the right to freedom of expression, but that the demonstrators who caused violence during the protests went beyond the law and that some of the demonstrations were antisemitic.