“The World Is Watching”: Biden Condemns Attack On Israel; POTUS Remarks Covered Live By Cable News & NBC, ABC, CBS & Fox Stick With Football
“Israel has a right to defend itself,” said President Joe Biden in an address to the nation and the world Saturday as the Jewish state is under a full-scale attack from Hamas. “Full stop”.
“Today, the people of Israel are under attack, orchestrated by a terrorist organization, Hamas,” Biden declared from the White House, with Secretary of State Anthony Blinken by his side. “In this moment of tragedy, I want to say to them, to the world and to terrorists everywhere: The U.S. stands with Israel. We will not ever fail to have their back.”
As they usually do during international crisis, all the cable news networks carried POTUS’ remarks live.
“Let me say this as clearly as I can: this is not a moment for any party hostile to Israel to exploit these attacks to seek advantage,” Biden declared as the Jewish state’s military forces began their retaliation and celebrations broke out in Tehran and elsewhere over the huge attacks by the Palestinian Sunni-Islamic fundamentalist group. “The world is watching.”
On the West Coast, only NBC cut to live coverage of Joe Biden’s blunt 2-minute remarks from the White House. During Biden’s speech, ABC stuck with college football with Oklahoma vs Texas, as did Fox with the Maryland at Ohio State match-up. CBS remained on its pregame Drive to Atlanta show before the Alabama at Texas A&M game.
Biden and Blinken took no questions after the speech. In a symbolism missed by almost no one, the multi-pronged Hamas attack today comes on the Jewish sabbath, a holy holiday, and the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War.
NBC had also cut to a live report on the Hamas attack at around 6 am ET with NBC News Now’s Joe Fryer anchoring with reports from NBC News foreign correspondents Raf Sanchez and
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