Biden campaign removes racist anti-Palestinian statement from platform
United States (QNN)- The campaign of Joe Biden has removed a racist anti-Palestinian line from his platform that angered human rights activists.
The campaign website of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee had stated that Biden’s administration will “firmly reject the BDS movement, which singles out Israel – home to millions of Jews – and too often veers into antisemitism, while letting Palestinians off the hook for their choices.”
But on Tuesday, that line disappeared from the platform. It was replaced with a pledge to “firmly reject the BDS movement – which singles out Israel and too often veers into anti-Semitism – and fight other efforts to delegitimise Israel on the global stage.”
Biden’s statement, especially the line” about letting “Palestinians off the hook for their choices”, stirred outrage among human rights activists.
“Blaming Palestinians for their own oppression is an anti-Palestinian talking point and there is never an excuse for such explicit racism, let alone as the Israeli government makes blatant and illegal land grabs,” JVP Action stated last week.
Meanwhile, Iman Awad, national legislative director at Emgage, a Muslim-American political advocacy group that endorsed Biden, told Middle East Eye the group had flagged the anti-Palestinian language to the campaign.
“It shocked us because that wasn’t the conversation we were having with the campaign. There was a huge disconnect. And in our opinion, the language was absolutely, unequivocally terrible on Palestine.”
BDS is the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, a grassroots global campaign led by Palestinians to pressure Israel to end its abuses. It is modeled on the successful global effort to help end apartheid in South Africa.
