White House defends Biden’s purchase of book that presents Zionism as a ‘settler colonialist’ enterprise

The White House says US President Joe Biden purchased a book presenting Zionism as a “settler colonialist” enterprise over the weekend to keep learning about a topic that has become much of his focus over his last year in the White House.

Biden raised some eyebrows when he was spotted holding Rashid Khalidi’s “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine,” while exiting a bookstore in Nantucket, Massachusetts.

Asked about the book choice by reporters aboard Air Force One, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby says the question reminds him of a quote from Mark Twain: “The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”

Kirby says he has not gotten a chance to ask Biden about the book purchase, but the spokesperson notes that the president reads broadly and is a student of history. “He’s fascinated by history and the lessons of history and where that can take us going forward.

“It doesn’t surprise me that he would go into a bookstore and get a book of history, particularly about the Middle East, to try to keep learning. He really does believe in speaking, learning, and thinking broadly, and that’s what that tells me,” Kirby says.