Bernie Sanders endorses Joe Biden for president
Senator Bernie Sanders has endorsed Joe Biden for the US presidency, offering hope that the Democratic party can unify around the former vice president as its 2020 presidential nominee and unseat Donald Trump in November's general election.
"Today I am asking all Americans, I'm asking every Democrat, I'm asking every independent, I'm asking a lot of Republicans, to come together in this campaign to support your candidacy which I endorse," Sanders told Biden in a virtual event on Monday.
Sanders added that Americans should come together to defeat the "most dangerous president in the modern history of this country".
The endorsement comes less than a week after the Vermont Senator, who emerged as the top choice for Arab-American voters and Palestinian rights advocates, suspended his own campaign, acknowledging that he had no path to the Democratic nomination.
"We have to make Trump a one-term president and we need you in the White House," Sanders told Biden on Monday.
The former vice president returned the praise.
"You've been the most powerful voice for a fair and more just America," he told the Vermont senator. "You don't get enough credit, Bernie, for being the voice that forces us to take a hard look in the mirror."
Over the past several days, many student groups and left-leaning organisations, including the Democratic Socialists for America, said they would not endorse Biden because of his centrist views on access to health care, environmental issues, and foreign policy.
Biden, who describes himself as a "stalwart supporter of Israel", verbally opposes the occupation and settlement expansion, but he rejects conditioning US aid to Israel - an idea that Sanders and other candidates had adopted.
"There is a clear example of hypocrisy in claiming to oppose Israeli occupation and settlement expansion, but insisting that there can never be accountability for Israel that actually pushes it in that direction," Omar Baddar, a Palestinian-American political analyst, told MEE of Biden last week.
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