Chuck Schumer, the senior senator in the US Senate, has called for a change in the country’s leadership and has spoken his harshest condemnation of Israel since the start of the Gaza War.
Jewish-American Democrat Chuck Schumer directly criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday during a speech from the US Senate floor, claiming that Netanyahu has been “too willing to tolerate the civilian toll in Gaza.”
To replace Netanyahu, Schumer urged Israel to conduct elections, claiming that the prime minister had “lost his way” in his quest for “political survival.”
Schumer stated, “There needs to be a fresh debate about Israel’s future after October 7,” referring to the day when the current conflict began when the Palestinian organization Hamas launched an offensive on southern Israel.
“We should let the chips fall where they may, and as a democracy, Israel has the right to choose its leaders,” Schumer went on. “Yet what matters most is that Israelis have an option.” However, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer did not offer a timetable for a potential vote.
Since the beginning of the conflict, over 31,341 Palestinians have died in Gaza, many of whom were youngsters. There is growing condemnation of the rising death toll in the region, as well as worries of genocide. On the other hand, President Joe Biden and other notable US officials have mostly refrained from criticizing Israel’s military action. The United States of America has been a longstanding supporter of Israel, providing the nation with aid of around $3.8 billion annually.
Notwithstanding, Chuck Schumer’s remarks, together with more forceful criticism from Biden, have indicated a change in the Democratic leadership’s stance toward Israel in the face of growing public pressure to pursue a long-term truce. In his address, Schumer stated, “We should not allow the complexities of this conflict stop us from stating the plain truth: Israelis have a moral obligation to do better, and Palestinian civilians do not deserve to suffer for the sins of Hamas.” “The United States needs to perform better.”
Netanyahu was one of several “major obstacles,” according to Chuck Schumer, to a two-state solution that would finally end the war. The Biden administration has insisted that a two-state solution be the cornerstone of any post-war preparations, but Netanyahu has consistently rejected the idea.
Chuck Schumer suggested that the US could be obliged to “play a more active role in shaping Israeli policy by using leverage” in light of the Israeli government’s resistance to altering its ways thus far.
Reaction to the speech by Chuck Schumer
After the five months of the war, this speech, first of its kind, is considered to be among the most forthright and incisive spoken by a senior US political figure.
It didn’t take long for the Biden administration and the Israeli government to respond.
A representative for the US Department of State, Matthew Miller, told reporters on Thursday that Schumer’s remarks were his personal and did not reflect the administration’s position.
Extreme-right Bezalel Smotrich, the Israeli Finance Minister, also voiced her disapproval of Schumer’s comments. Smotrich stated, “We expect the largest democracy in the world to respect Israeli democracy.”
For their part, US Republicans attacked the Democratic leadership in the address. Mitch McConnell, the minority leader of the Senate, called Schumer’s demand for fresh elections in Israel “grotesque and hypocritical”.
McConnell stated, “The Jewish state of Israel deserves an ally that acts like one.”
Sanctions by settlers
Chuck Schumer’s address on Thursday coincided with the US imposing further penalties on illegal outposts and Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, an area in which the Biden administration has demonstrated a greater readiness to intervene.
The outposts known as Zvis Farm and Moshes Farm served as sites for aggression against Palestinians, according to the US Department of State. Three unauthorized Israeli settlers were also the focus of Thursday’s punishment. Sanctions were levied by the administration in February on four Israeli Israelis it believed to be complicit in the increasing settler violence in the occupied West Bank since October 7.
