WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will deliver the keynote address at an annual ceremony commemorating the Holocaust on May 7, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre announced on Wednesday.
Biden’s remarks will take place during a U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum ceremony marking the Days of Remembrance on Capitol Hill next Tuesday.
Jean-Pierre told reporters that Biden will “discuss our moral duty to combat the rising scourge of antisemitism” and the administration’s work to fight back against antisemitism.
Biden’s remarks will come amid a rise in antisemitism, including at the protests that have swept college campuses in recent weeks as students have blasted Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
Asked Wednesday if Biden supports the deployment of law enforcement to address college campus protests, Jean-Pierre said: “We’ve been very clear on that — Americans have the right to peacefully protest. They have a right to peacefully protest, as long as it’s within the law and that it’s peaceful.”
“Forcibly taking over a building is not peaceful. It’s just not,” she continued, referring to protestors at Columbia University who took over a campus building early Tuesday. “Students have the right to feel safe. They have the right to learn, they have the right to do this without disruption and they have a right to feel safe.”
Former President Donald Trump has seized on these sometimes violent demonstrations, reposting a Fox News clip on Truth Social on Wednesday, for example, in which a guest said that these protests wouldn’t have happened under Trump and that “Biden is complicit in this violence.”
Congressional Republicans have also highlighted antisemitism on college campuses. Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., visited Columbia last week with a group of other GOP members, and said he would call on Biden to rein in protests.
The House is expected to vote Wednesday on legislation that would mandate that the Education Department adopt the broad definition of antisemitism used by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, an intergovernmental group, to enforce anti-discrimination laws.
The international group defines antisemitism as a “certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews.” The group adds that “rhetorical and physical manifestations” of antisemitism include such things as calling for the killing or harming of Jews or holding Jews collectively responsible for actions taken by the state of Israel.
