President Biden’s voice may be more of a whisper than a roar these days, but Thursday night it was as loud and powerful as it has ever been.

The terrorist group Hamas has unleashed pure and unadulterated evil into the world, Biden said.

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Unfortunately, the Jewish people know, perhaps better than anyone, that there is no limit to the depravity of people when they seek to hurt others.

Condemning the subversive forces of anti

–

Semitism and Islamophobia, he said, the United States

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Continue to support and arm Israel as it wages war against Hamas, and

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also send millions of dollars in humanitarian aid to Gaza to help alleviate the impact of Israeli airstrikes and

extensive

blockade, which has cut off food, medicine, water and fuel to the area’s more than two million impoverished residents.

Israel has the absolute right to exist in peace and defend itself; Palestinians have the absolute right to self-determination and freedom. We cannot give up on the two-state solution, Biden said Thursday.

It is still difficult to contemplate the enormity of October’s horrific event. Seven attacks on Israeli civilians, and the terrible price so many Palestinian civilians pay for them

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now are

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forced to pay. Both sides have suffered and will continue to suffer in unthinkable ways.

On Wednesday, Anderson Cooper interviewed the sisters of Amit Man, a 22-year-old Israeli medic who spent hours exchanging messages with her family on WhatsApp from a kibbutz clinic while Hamas gunmen chased and slaughtered her neighbors.

I don’t think I’m getting out of here, she wrote just before she was murdered. Please be strong if anything happens to me.

In Gaza, Palestinian parents have debated whether to write their children’s names on their palms or on their backs so that the family can be buried together if they are killed.

It feels like humanity is kind of letting us down right now, Melanie Ward of Medical Aid for Palestinians told Crooked Media as she passed on the conversation to her Gaza director, Mahmoud Shalabi, that he had had with his wife about how they had to mark their children.

Like most committed Americans who have no real expertise in the Middle East, I read as much as I can, and watch as much as I can. I pay attention to those with deep experience, knowledge and understanding of the age-old conflict. I try to keep out the extremists on both sides.

I avoid offensive comments of what did you expect? factions of the American left and right. There is nothing on earth

Nothing

That could begin to justify the atrocities that Hamas has unleashed against Israeli civilians. Anti-Israel demonstrations like the one that took place Monday at the Sydney Opera House, where pro-Palestinian protesters sang Gas the Jews, and the letter from Harvard students blaming Israel for the Hamas attacks are just two examples of the reprehensible way in which This conflict has robbed many of their humanity.

You can believe that the Palestinians have the same kind of rights as the Israelis and that the rights of the Palestinians have been violated by Israel for many, many years, foreign policy and national security expert David Rothkopf told Salon. One can also believe that the plight of Palestinians trapped in Gaza or the West Bank is serious and deserves the world’s attention. But if you have a friend or family member who has just passed away, don’t go to the funeral and talk about their shortcomings. You wait at least a few days. It’s just the wrong time.

It is difficult to wade through the disinformation, misinformation and just plain confusion about what is happening on the ground in Gaza.

Like many, I was taken

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according to initial news reports, based on information from Gaza’s Health Ministry, about who was responsible for Tuesday’s massive explosion at 1 p.m.

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Ahli Arab Hospital, and texted a Jewish friend: How can Israel hope to keep the moral high ground if it does this?

My friend shot back: Why would Western news media and media around the world believe Hamas news reports without verification, research and evaluation?

Of course he’s right.

The growing consensus from impartial sources, including open source research sites like Bellingcat, is that the explosion was not consistent with an Israeli airstrike. On Thursday, Biden said bluntly that it was not done by the Israelis.

Either side can cling to the belief that the enemy did it.

The honest-minded among us must accept that we may never know the truth.

But we must never let go of the desire to find a way for both Palestinians and Israelis to raise their families and live in peace.

Biden was right to be cautious Israel resists exaggerated outbursts of anger, as the US disastrously did after September 11. If the US wants to support Israel in its war against Hamas, we must also commit to enlightenment

the suffering of the Palestinian people, once again ravaged by forces beyond their control.

What other choice do we have at this point?

@robinkabcarian