JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — President Joe Biden compared Irish Catholics living under British rule to the plight of the Palestinians while visiting a hospital in East Jerusalem.
“My background and the background of my family is Irish American, and we have a long history of not fundamentally unlike the Palestinian people with Great Britain and their attitude to Irish Catholics over the years, for 400 years,” Biden said.
BIDEN LOOKING FORWARD TO MEETING SAUDI LEADERS ‘LIKE A ROOT CANAL’
The president drew the analogy in remarks at the Augusta Victoria Hospital in East Jerusalem on Friday before reading from Seamus Heaney’s poem, The Cure of Troy.
“It’s classically Irish, but it also could fit Palestinians,” Biden said. “It says: ’History [teaches us not to] hope on this side of the grave. But then, once in a lifetime [that] longed-for tidal wave of justice [rises] up, and hope and history rhyme.’”
“‘Hope and history rhyme,’” the president said. “It is my prayer that we’re reaching one of those moments where hope and history rhyme.”
Calling the hospital network the “backbone” of the Palestinian healthcare system, Biden said America believed in strengthening that foundation.
“It’s part of our commitment to support health and dignity to the Palestinian people,” he said, before committing $100 million in U.S. humanitarian aid to the network.
The president’s stop to East Jerusalem came on Day Three of a closely watched visit to the Middle East with stops in Israel, the West Bank, and Saudi Arabia.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Biden raised the issue of settlements in the territories during a meeting with Israeli leaders Thursday.
“It was a very constructive exchange between our side and the Israeli side,” the official said.
