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Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House’s principal deputy press secretary, told reporters aboard Air Force One on Wednesday that the exhortation was conveyed over a phone call before the president departed Washington to address graduates at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in Connecticut.
The Biden administration did not immediately lay out what it would consider a “significant deescalation” of violence, though Jean-Pierre said the goal is to be “on the path to a cease fire.”
“That is what he’s calling for,” she said of the president.
Biden has faced mounting pressure from progressive Democrats who have challenged the party’s long-standing and virtually unblinking support for Israel and its long-running conflict with Palestinians. The president was greeted Tuesday as he arrived for an unrelated trip to Detroit by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the only Palestinian American member of Congress, who reportedly confronted Biden over Israel’s treatment of Palestinians as the two stood on the tarmac.
Prior to the flare up of tensions between the Middle East neighbors, the Biden administration had hoped to deprioritize the Israel-Palestine issue that has vexed presidents for decades in favor of reorienting the United States’ foreign policy priorities elsewhere. But the violence in the region has since drawn the White House into trying to ease the conflict, if not end it, overshadowing Biden’s plans to promote his domestic spending proposals.
POLITICO reported on Tuesday that U.S. officials are optimistic the clash is headed toward its conclusion and they believe their approach helped deter an Israeli ground offensive into the Gaza Strip.
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