Joe Biden has sought to address anger on United States university campuses over his support for Israel amid the war in Gaza, as the US president delivered a graduation speech at a historically Black university attended by Martin Luther King Jr.

Biden’s graduation speech on Sunday at Morehouse College in Atlanta, in the election battleground state of Georgia, is aimed at encouraging Black and young voters to support him ahead of US elections in November.

“It’s a humanitarian crisis in Gaza,” Biden said in his address on Sunday morning, adding that he is “working on a deal” to end the fighting and “build a lasting and durable peace”.

“Leadership is about fighting through the most intractable problem. It’s about channeling anger, frustration and heartbreak to find a solution. It’s about doing what you believe is right, even when it’s hard and lonely,” he said.

The US president is expected to face a tight election contest against his Republican rival and predecessor Donald Trump, and he is trying to appeal to key segments of his Democratic Party base.

But Biden has faced widespread anger – particularly from progressives, youth and Black and other voters of colour – over his unwavering support for Israel amid the Gaza war.

More than 35,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed in Israeli attacks since the conflict began in early October.

Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher, reporting from a protest for Gaza about 1km (less than a mile) from Morehouse College on Sunday morning, said the demonstrators believe Biden should not be giving the commencement address because of his Middle East policies.

Students had called on the school to cancel Biden’s speech over his support for Israel despite the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza.

“Morehouse College has a history of social justice,” Fisher said.

“Its most famous alumnus is Dr Martin Luther King, who of course talked about how there should be equality throughout the world and how it was important that politicians did always what was right, rather than what brought them votes.”

Photos from the commencement ceremony, during which Biden received an honorary degree, showed students and faculty wearing keffiyehs. Some turned their backs to the US president as he spoke.

Morehouse College valedictorian DeAngelo Jeremiah Fletcher had a Palestinian flag affixed to his graduation cap. Fletcher on Sunday called for “an immediate and permanent ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip.

“Hear the people of this world, sing the song of righteous justice,” he said during his valedictorian speech.

The White House last week sent a senior official to meet students and faculty members at Morehouse to discuss the objections to Biden’s speech, according to US broadcaster NBC News.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Friday said Biden sought to use the speech as “an opportunity to lift up and to give an important message to our future leaders”.

Bernice King, the civil icon’s daughter, told Bloomberg in an interview last week that Black voters are “very disgruntled right now with the president” and that Biden risks losing a considerable share of their votes.

The civil rights group Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) had said Biden should not speak at Morehouse.

“His team should have made the decision that this is not the right time to take the spotlight from Morehouse students to the president and his bad policy on Gaza,” CAIR’s Edward Ahmed Mitchell said.

The controversy over the Morehouse speech came after weeks of major protests at US universities, including the Atlanta college, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and divestment from Israel.

Biden said earlier this month that “order must prevail” on campuses, and police have made thousands of arrests across the US while attacking student encampments.

Protesters were arrested during a violent police crackdown in New York’s Brooklyn on Saturday, while hundreds of demonstrators gathered in Washington, DC to demand an end to bloodshed in Gaza and the arming of Israel by the US.

The protests, which have spread globally, are continuing amid the Israeli ground invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza, along with a deadly incursion into Jabalia in the north.

Meanwhile, Israel is allowing very little aid into the enclave, and the US is proceeding with a much-criticised plan to deliver humanitarian assistance via a temporary floating pier.

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Biden had written to felicitate PM Shehbaz on Friday, assuring that Washington would continue to stand with Pakistan to tackle “the most pressing global and regional challenges”. In his first communication with the new administration, the US president had noted that the “enduring partnership between our nations remains critical to ensuring the security of our people — and people around the world”.

Interestingly, Biden had not had a similar communication with former prime minister Imran Khan when the US president assumed office.

In his response to the US president’s letter today, released by the Prime Minister’s Office, the premier said: “Pakistan is willing to work with the US towards a common goal of global peace and security and development and prosperity of the region.”

He said Pakistan attached “key importance” to its relations with the US, adding that the two countries were jointly working together on important initiatives regarding energy, climate change, agriculture, health and education sectors.

PM Shehbaz said that cooperation in the energy sector and Green Alliance Framework initiative between the two countries was welcome.

Experts had noted that Biden’s letter did not congratulate PM Shehbaz for assuming power or winning the election.

At a recent Congressional hearing, senior US diplomat Donald Lu had been asked whether Washington recognised the new government in Pakistan.

The question, posed by Representative Tim Burchett, was based on allegations of rigging and reports of irregularities in the recent February 8 elections. US lawmakers and the State Department have repeatedly called for a thorough probe into the claims, while Lu suggested that the Election Commission of Pakistan may want to “re-do” some of the contests.

However, in his response at the time, Lu had clarified that the “US does not go around recognising new governments”, rather it just worked with the regime in power at the time.

Last month, a cohort of US Democratic lawmakers had written to Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, urging them to refrain from recognising the new government in Pakistan until allegations of election rigging were thoroughly investigated.

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The White House announced Lew’s nomination on Tuesday, months after Tom Nides – the former envoy to Israel – resigned from his post.

Lew still needs to be confirmed in the Democratic-controlled Senate, where Republican lawmakers have been using procedural hurdles to delay and block the Biden administration’s diplomatic nominees.

“Today, President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate Jacob J. Lew to serve as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the State of Israel,” the White House said in a statement.

Lew, who held senior government positions in the administrations of Democratic presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, has been an outspoken supporter of Israel.

He currently serves as co-president of the board of the National Library of Israel, USA, a New York-based group that supports the library in Israel and its programs.

In a social media post on Tuesday morning, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen welcomed Lew’s appointment as ambassador to a “country you know so well”.

“We look forward to working with you in the spirit of our close cooperation and alliance,” Cohen said.

Lew’s nomination comes at a time when the US is working to secure formal diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

The Biden administration is also pushing to include Israel in its Visa Waiver Program, which would allow Israelis to travel visa-free to the US despite concerns about Israel’s mistreatment of Palestinian Americans.

But the US-Israel relationship has seen some recent friction, with Biden warning Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against going through with a judicial overhaul plan that critics say would weaken the courts and rule of law in Israel.

The US State Department also has regularly voiced criticism of Netanyahu’s policies against Palestinians, including the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Still, Biden administration officials often stress that the US commitment to Israel is “ironclad”.

Roles in US government

Lew previously made headlines on Israel-related issues.

In 2015, he was booed by pro-Israel supporters during a Jerusalem Post conference in New York for defending the Iran nuclear deal, which saw Tehran scale back its nuclear program in exchange for a lifting of sanctions against its economy.

Israel and its backers opposed the multilateral agreement, which was signed by the Obama administration and major world powers.

But Lew has insisted that the Iran deal – which was nixed by former President Donald Trump in 2018 – was good for Israel and that US-Israel cooperation was at its “highest level” under Obama.

Lew was Obama’s White House chief of staff before being appointed treasury secretary in 2013. He also served as the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under both Clinton and Obama.

The ambassador-designate first joined the Obama administration as deputy secretary of state for management and resources.

Outside of government work, he has held many positions at academic and financial institutions.

In remarks at Columbia University in 2017, Lew lauded the Obama administration’s efforts to push back against the Goldstone Report, a United Nations fact-finding mission that accused Israel of possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in its 2009 war in Gaza.

“The United States was really the only country that was out there under President Obama defending Israel against things like the Goldstone Report,” Lew said at that time, as reported by Jewish Insider.

“I can’t tell you how many dozens of phone calls were made, presidential, vice presidential, secretarial, sub-cabinet level, to try and prevent Israel from being isolated.”

At the same event, Lew also addressed the Obama administration’s decision not to veto a 2016 UN Security Council resolution that called Israeli settlements a “flagrant violation under international law”, saying Washington worked to water down the measure.

“Personally, I wish the resolution hadn’t been there at all. I’m not happy that there was a resolution,” he said.

“I’m also happy it wasn’t in its original form where we would have had to veto it, but then the rest of the world would have been voting for this even harsher condemnation.”

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Speaking to reporters before he boarded Air Force One for a trip to North Carolina, Mr. Biden was asked whether he was ready to dispatch such a high-level emissary as a show of support for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukraine’s armed forces as they continue fighting back against an unprovoked invasion by Russia.

“We haven’t made that decision yet,” Mr. Biden said.

He added that he and his advisers were “making that decision now”.

Asked if he was ready to go himself, he replied: “Yeah”.

Mr. Biden’s remarks come amid calls for him or an appropriately high-ranked official to visit Kyiv in the wake of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s headline-grabbing walkabout with Mr. Zelensky in the Ukrainian capital last week.

Though Mr. Biden and Mr. Zelensky met in Washington last August, giving the Ukrainian leader the White House visit he was denied under Mr. Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, the two leaders have not met in person since, and Mr. Zelensky has remained in his country while his defense forces have worked to repel Russian invaders with a significant degree of success.

As a result, the two leaders have only been able to meet virtually, even as the leaders of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — Nato members all — traveled to Kyiv by train on Wednesday to meet with Mr. Zelensky in person on the same day of his latest virtual meeting with Mr. Biden.

Following that virtual meeting, Mr. Biden announced the authorization of a new $800m defense assistance package to provide Ukrainian defense forces with “new capabilities” including artillery systems and rounds, armored personnel carriers, and helicopters.

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