RJ Escrow "fisks" Biden's October 18 speech to the nation on the current Middle East crisis
RJ Escrow provides a very worthwhile critical commentary of President Biden’s speech to the nation on the Israel-Gaza crisis from October 18.1
Escrow does not dig into what the messaging is to various audiences is in the speech. But because speeches like this do address multiple audiences, expecially in a situation like this moment, it’s worth doing a close reading of the President’s words, as Escrow does here.
In the early days of blogging, a detailed, line-by-line analysis was called “fisking”, a term that seems to have mostly disappeared from the online vocabulary.
In general, it was a reasonable assumption that Biden’s immediate priority in this speech is to head off a wider regional war.2 And that concern presumably is a still a major one.
Escrow is emphatic in stressing that deliberately depriving a population of food and water - as Israel, the official occupying power for Gaza, had been doing and was explicit about what they were doing. Americans and Europeans need to take that very seriously.
Hearing Biden's Speech Line by Line is TERRIFYING & infuriating. The Zero Hour YouTube channel 10/21/2023. (Accessed: 2023-21-10).
Collinsion, Stephen (2023): The US is mounting a frantic effort to head off a wider Middle East war. CNN 10/17/2023. <https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/16/politics/us-prevent-wider-middle-east-war/index.html> (Accessed: 2023-22-10).