The Majority Leader of the United States Senate has called on Israel to hold new elections. AP reports that Mr Chuck Schumer believes that the Israeli Prime Minister has “lost his way” and he is an obstacle to peace in the region amid a growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Schumer is the highest-ranking Jewish official in the U.S. In a speech on Thursday, he strongly criticized Netanyahu on the Senate floor, saying the prime minister has put himself in a coalition of far-right extremists and has, therefore, “0009009⁰000 too willing to tolerate the civilian toll in Gaza, which is pushing support for Israel worldwide to historic lows.”
He said, “Israel can not survive if it becomes a pariah.”
His warning comes as an increasing number of Democrats have pushed back against Israel. President Biden has also been on Netanyahu’s neck, arguing that he needs to pay more attention to civilian casualties in Gaza amid Israeli bombardment.
This month, the U.S. began airdrops of humanitarian aid and announced it would establish a pier to deliver assistance to Gaza.
Schumer was a strong supporter of the Israeli government. He visited Israel days after the Hamas October 7 attack. When he returned, he gave a lengthy speech on the Senate floor in December and criticized the “brazen and widespread antisemitism the likes of which we haven’t seen in generations in this country, if ever.”
But on Thursday, he said the “Israeli people are being stifled right now by a governing vision that is stuck in the past.”
The majority leader is also blaming right-wing Israelis, Hamas and Palestinian Authority President. He said there will be no peace in Israel and Gaza and the West Bank until they are all removed from the equation.
Reacting to the speech, the Israeli ambassador, Michael Herzog, remarked that the speech was counterproductive to “our common goals.”
Immediately after the speech, the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnel, reacted on the Senate floor that “Israel deserves an ally that acts like one” and that foreign observers “ought to refrain from weighing in.”
In Isreal itself, protesters calling for early elections have been blaming Netanyahu for making decisions based on keeping his right-wing coalition intact rather than Israel’s interests at a time of war. They are also accusing him of endangering Israel’s strategic alliance with the US by rejecting the latter’s proposals for a post-war vision for Gaza to appease the far-right members of his party.
