Biden delivers speech during Holocaust ceremony, reaffirms ’ironclad’ support of Israel

President Biden gave his most forcefully pro-Israel speech in months Tuesday, slamming the “absolutely despicable” rise of antisemitism inside the United States and chiding pro-Hamas protesters on college campuses for “forgetting” that terrorists’ Oct. 7 slaughter of hundreds had triggered war in the Middle East. The 81-year-old president pledged his “ironclad” support to the Jewish state at an event hosted by DC’s Holocaust museum at the US Capitol — just before reports emerged that his administration is halting shipments of precision bombs to deter an Israeli offensive against Rafah, the final major area of Hamas control. “We’ve seen a ferocious surge of antisemitism in America and around the world — vicious propaganda on social media, Jews forced to hide their kippahs under baseball hats, tuck their Jewish stars into their shirts,” Biden said in his 15-minute address, five days after briefly addressing nationwide campus protests with documented cases of antisemitism following an initial 10 da