As demonstrations against the Gaza War continue, Biden will deliver an election-year roast at the annual journalists' dinner

As demonstrations against the Gaza War continue, Biden will deliver an election-year roast at the annual journalists' dinner

Like the majority of his predecessors, Biden has taken use of the yearly White House Correspondents' Association dinner to poke fun at political adversaries, particularly Republican competitor Donald Trump, and to probe media coverage of his administration.

Saturday night, in front of a sizable gathering of media, celebrities, and political figures, President Joe Biden is scheduled to give an election-year roasting in response to mounting criticism of his handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Like the majority of his predecessors, Biden has in the past used the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner to poke fun at political adversaries, particularly Republican competitor Donald Trump, and to gauge media coverage of his administration.

However, any attempt by Biden to poke fun at Washington's shortcomings and the mistakes of the presidential campaign will have to be weighed against worries about the war and humanitarian crisis in Gaza, as well as the risks facing journalists covering the conflict. Protesters have vowed to assemble outside the dinner location.

The Biden administration's backing for Israel's military campaign in Gaza, which has lasted for six months, has drawn criticism from American college students, who are pitching encampments to pressure their schools to cut connections with Israel. Opponents of Israel's aggressive counterprotest, accusing them of antisemitism.

After Joe Biden speaks in front of an anticipated gathering of over 3,000 people at a hotel in Washington, "Saturday Night Live" comedian Colin Jost will take the stage and is likely to make some jabs at both the president and his opponents.

A focus will probably also be on the many journalists who are imprisoned and subjected to various forms of persecution worldwide for carrying out their duties, such as Wall Street Journal writer Evan Gershkovich, who has been held in Russia since March 2023.

But in the lead-up to the event, Biden was the target of most of the demonstrations outside the glamorous annual dinner's location, directed at Western press outlets.

Chants said that American journalists had been lying about their undercovering of the conflict. As guests and other participants raced inside the event, protestors wearing the traditional Palestinian keffiyeh scarf screamed, "Shame on you!" as they ran after men in suits and ladies in long dresses while clutching bags.

Beside mock-ups of flak jackets with the 'press' logo, other demonstrators were splayed and lifeless on the sidewalk.

As they marched to the location, other demonstrators screamed, "Free, free Palestine."

Prior to the president arriving at the decades-long Washington Hilton, hundreds of people were expected to be gathering nearby and along Biden's motorcade route to draw attention to the large number of Arab and Palestinian journalists who have been killed by Israel's military since the war started in October.

According to Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi, law enforcement, including the Secret Service, has implemented additional street closures and other precautions to guarantee the "highest levels of safety and security for attendees." Guglielmi said that the organization was cooperating with the Washington police to safeguard the protestors' right to gather. but "we will remain intolerant to any violent or destructive behaviour." Calling on their colleagues in Washington to abstain from the event entirely, over twenty-one Gaza-based journalists sent a letter last week.

"The toll exacted on us for merely fulfilling our journalistic duties is staggering," said the letter. The Israeli military detains, questions, and tortures us for no other reason than that we are journalists. An organizer voiced their displeasure, stating that the White House Correspondents' Association, which primarily represents hundreds of journalists covering the president, had been mute over the deaths of Palestinian journalists during the early stages of the conflict. The WHCA did not reply to a comment request.

Nearly 100 journalists have died while covering the conflict in Gaza, according to a preliminary analysis that the Committee to Protect Journalists published on Friday. Israel has justified its behavior by claiming that it has been pursuing extremists.

Since the start of the Israel-Gaza conflict, journalists have risked their lives to protect our freedom to know the truth. Carlos Martínez de la Serna, the director of the CPJ program, stated in a statement that every time a journalist passes away or is hurt, we lose a piece of that truth.