Clinton Responds to Question About Gaza Conflict

Protestor disrupted Pitt-Greensburg rally; former president says peace process must ‘start all over again’

By Staff Reports
The Tube City Almanac
October 30, 2024
Posted in: Politics & Elections

Yousuf Lachhab Ibrahim with additional reporting from Jason Togyer

One of the hot issues for younger voters — the year-long Israeli bombing campaign on Palestine, following an October 2023 surprise attack by Hamas — was barely mentioned Tuesday during a get-out-the-vote rally in McKeesport’s Renziehausen Park.

The closest anyone came was when former President Bill Clinton was listing a variety of problems the country was facing. The issue received less attention than questions about artificial intelligence.

Earlier in the day, an appearance by Clinton at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg was briefly interrupted when a 20-year-old protestor who identified herself only as “Faith” interrupted the former president’s remarks to ask why the United States is still supplying weapons to Israel.

The student also alluded to tens of thousands of children reportedly killed in Gaza in Israeli attacks, according to published and broadcast reports.

Clinton told the student he has been critical of civilian deaths and Israeli bombing of infrastructure, said Israel has taken the land of Palestinians by force.

“I agree with much of what you said,” he said, but soon after, he joked, “I mean, I think I agree, my hearing aid is not working very well, I think I agree with what I heard.”

During the end of his second term, Clinton helped negotiate a peace deal that became known as "The Clinton Parameters." That deal was abandoned when President George W. Bush took office a few weeks later.

During his speech in McKeesport on Tuesday, the former president asked the question, “How do we really start a peace process and bring down the killing in the Middle East?”

Following the speech, Clinton was asked to comment on the Palestinian question.

“I think that we’re almost having to start all over again,” Clinton told a reporter for Tube City Almanac on Tuesday. “The deal that I’ve had for them is going to be very hard to put back together. But I think we have to try, we have to keep trying. We’re not going to kill our way out of this, we gotta build our way out of it, and that’s what Kamala Harris has promised to do.”

The ongoing conflict has regional and international repercussions and has widened to include Lebanon, whom Israel invaded on Oct. 1, as well as Iran, with whom Israel has traded missile attacks.

In the Gaza Strip and West Bank, at least 49,000 Palestinians have been killed — over half of them women and children — and 1.9 million Palestinians have been displaced since October 2023. At least 1,780 Israelis have been killed and 60,000 are currently displaced, and up to 100 hostages are still being held by Hamas.

Due to the difficulty in counting the dead, as well as those indirectly killed by starvation and disease, the Palestinian death toll is estimated by experts to be much higher than reported.

Many voters under age 30 have been critical of President Biden’s handling of the ongoing conflict, with protests on college campuses nationwide calling for an immediate ceasefire and disinvestment from Israel.

Some Democrats are worried that the issue will depress voter turnout in swing states with large populations of Palestinian refugees and Arab-Americans, including Michigan, which has 393,000 Arab-Americans, and Pennsylvania, which has 127,000.

Campus protests also have led Republicans to accuse Democrats of anti-semitism.

Originally published October 30, 2024.

In other news:
"Green Party’s Stein t…" || "Elections Officials R…"