During remarks at a campaign event in Minneapolis on Wednesday, U.S. President Joe Biden was interrupted by a heckler, who shouted: “As a rabbi, I need you to call for a ceasefire right now.”
“I think we need a pause. A pause means give time to get the prisoners out,” Biden responded, per the pool report. “I’m the guy that convinced Bibi to call for a ceasefire to let the prisoners out. I’m the guy that talked to Sisi to convince him to open the door.”
The latter sentence was an apparent reference to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah eEl-Sisi and the opening of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt.
As security escorted the heckler out, the latter sang “Ceasefire now,” per the pool, which said the heckler identified as Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg.
Per Rosenberg’s website, the rabbi is Reconstructionist and “currently resides on Dakota land, also home to the Anishinaabe, known as South Minneapolis.”
The president added that “this is incredibly complicated for the Israelis. It’s incredibly complicated for the Muslim world as well,” according to the pool report. “I supported a two-state solution. I have from the very beginning.”
“The fact is the matter is that Hamas is a terrorist organization. A flat-out terrorist organization,” Biden added.
Earlier in the day, Biden talked about the Hamas terror attacks during an event in a barn in Northfield, Minn.
“We’ve all seen the devastating images from Gaza. Palestinian children crying out for lost parents. Parents reasoning and writing their children’s names on their hands and legs to be identified if the worst happens,” Biden said.
“Look the loss of every innocent life is a tragedy. We grieve for those deaths and continue to grieve for the Israeli children and mothers, brutally slaughtered by Hamas terrorists,” Biden added.
