Chuck Schumer calls for new elections in Israel, criticizing Netanyahu's leadership

[LetMyPeopleVote]

Source: NBC

WASHINGTON — In the most significant criticism made by a U.S. leader against the Israeli government since its war with Hamas began, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday called for new elections in Israel to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish official in the U.S., said in remarks on the Senate floor that “the Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel after Oct. 7.”

“The world has changed — radically — since then, and the Israeli people are being stifled right now by a governing vision that is stuck in the past,” Schumer said in what was billed as a major address by the Democratic leader from New York.

Netanyahu has “lost his way,” Schumer continued, “by allowing his political survival to take precedence over the best interests of Israel.” Schumer said that Netanyahu has aligned himself with “far-right extremists” like Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who he said are “pushing support for Israel worldwide to historic lows.”

“Israel cannot survive if it becomes a pariah,” the majority leader said.

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/chuck-schumer-calls-new-elections-israel-criticizing-netanyahus-leader-rcna143397

---

Link to tweet

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) gives a "major address" on the Middle East, calling Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to go

Link to tweet

[patphil]

8. I support Senator Schumer 100%.

As both US Senate Majority Leader, and a Jew, he is in a unique position to put that kind of pressure on the Israeli government.
You have to know he is doing this with full approval of the President.
Netanyahu must go!

[Habitation]

24. Schumer's the smartest guy in the room, he's great

Nyet should have never been elected

[speak easy]

2. Senator Schumer went in hard

“As a democracy, Israel has the right to choose its own leaders, and we should let the chips fall where they may. But the important thing is that Israelis are given a choice. There needs to be a fresh debate about the future of Israel after October 7,” Schumer says.

“In my opinion, that is best accomplished by holding an election,” he says.

“Nobody expects Prime Minister Netanyahu to do the things that must be done to break the cycle of violence, to preserve his credibility on the world stage, to work to a two-state solution,” he continued. “Israel cannot survive if it becomes a pariah.”

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog-march-14-2024/

[Basic LA]

3. Is the dam starting to break?

Chuck Schumer isn't some nobody. Criticism of Bibi & the Occupation at large are leaking out drip by drip. It seems painfully slow, until it bursts. Maybe we'll join the rest of world in condemning this injustice at last.

[Happy Hoosier]

4. Chuck is correct.

Israel cannot thrive under the Nutandyahoo and Likud.

[PSPS]

5. Hell, yes! Bibi has to go. All the bloodshed is just to keep himself out of prison.

[IronLionZion]

12. No, he's not an Israeli citizen

It's a common misconception since some Jewish politicians hold dual citizenship.

[BWdem4life]

7. Why don't we just have the CIA assassinate him?

Too 1970s?

[TheRickles]

9. Better late than never.

[IronLionZion]

10. Netanyahu destroys sympathy and goodwill for Israel

he's endangering the lives of Israelis by provoking as much conflict as he can. "Because Hamas" is the tired excuse for everything and is wearing out fast.

[EllieBC]

11. Schumer is an excellent example

of someone able to be critical of Netanyahu and still not expecting Israelis to just accept being attacked by terrorists.

[Richard D]

13. Everyone says Israel must change . . .

. . . but I have yet to see or hear of any plan offered by outsiders that will guarantee another Oct 7 will not happen.

[speak easy]

15. Get Arabs - Saudis - UAE to do the policing.

[Richard D]

17. Good idea . . .

. . . but will they want to and will the residents of Gaza agree to that?

[speak easy]

27. I can't find the link - maybe I dreamed it.

but I remember reading about the Arabs rebuilding/policing Gaza as part of recognition / Palestinian state deal.

[Richard D]

28. I hope so.

Many Arabs are sick of radical Islamists. Significant progress towards peace in the Middle East was looking possible and even likely prior to October 7.

[speak easy]

29. "Significant progress ... was looking possible and even likely prior to October 7"

until Hamas tried to blow up the deal.

[LymphocyteLover]

19. a lasting peace only will come with a 2 state solution, which of course Netanyahu opposes

[Richard D]

20. For all intents and purposes . . .

. . . Gaza has been a state for over a decade until they broke the ceasefire that existed up to October 6. How do you imagine a two-state solution would be radically different from what is there now? Hamas does not want a two-state solution; they want it all. From the river to the sea means just that.

[Habitation]

25. Netanyahu enabled hamas

[Enquiring_Mind]

14. Outstanding

Schumer doing this is significant

[Oopsie Daisy]

16. I think that's probably a good idea. I'll bet Biden would be relieved.

[LymphocyteLover]

18. This is a big deal. Probably done in coordination with Biden

from Josh Marshall--

"There was really quite a stunning development in the Senate this afternoon. Schumer went to the floor to call for new elections in Israel, calling Netanyahu “an obstacle to peace” and going on to say he is pursuing “dangerous and inflammatory policies that test existing standards for assistance.” If Netanyahu remains in power after the war, the US should “play a more active role in shaping Israeli policy by using our leverage to change the present course.”


...

First, it is not surprising that Schumer thinks this. It would very surprising if he didn’t. The fact that he is saying it on the Senate floor is truly stunning and something that in most cases would be all but unimaginable. The first and most obvious reason is that US leaders virtually never publicly call for new elections — and implicitly for a new government — in the governments of close allies. And for good reason.
...




The other really critical part of this is that Schumer is clearly running interference for Joe Biden and the policy shift he is trying to achieve. It is one clearly informed by the domestic situation in the United States. But it would be a basic error to reduce it to only that. To do so would be to ignore almost 15 years of relations between the Obama and Biden administrations — in and out of government. (Some are doing that out of ignorance, others for political purposes.) The White House has been signaling this pivot for weeks. Biden is a strong supporter of Israel going back literally half a century, though not of Netanyahu. He has also gone to great lengths, to his obvious political peril, to back Israel in recent months. But he’s still not Chuck Schumer. Schumer is Jewish and as the senior senator from New York comes from the cradle of American Jewry, New York City. Even today, with Jews decamped throughout the United States, New York City has the largest Jewish population of any city in the world, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
...


Schumer is unquestionably taking this step in coordination with the White House. He is putting himself forward as a heat shield for Joe Biden. But it also clearly took an almost adamantine level of frustration and anger at Netanyahu to bring Schumer to this point. I have no doubt Schumer believes every word he is saying.



It’s a step that is an important one for US-Israel relations generally and also for American supporters of Israel generally."

[Mosby]

21. Interesting opinion from an Israeli analyst.

I dunno guys. From where I’m sitting, the Democrats seem doggedly committed to handing Bibi his reelection campaign.

If you make him the hero standing up to American pressure on Israel/waffling on Hamas, you give him his one chance for political survival. He’s a political dead man walking because October 7 happened on his watch, and because he’s generally distrusted and unliked by a large majority of the public. (That’s not an opinion. We have extensive polls.)

The sooner Hamas is defeated, the sooner the election comes and the sooner Netanyahu almost certainly falls. (Again, every poll and study.)

If Democrats don’t understand that, he’ll run circles around them.

Link to tweet

[Mosby]

22. Chuck is trying to walk some of it back

The U.S. cannot dictate the outcome of an election.

That is for the Israeli public to decide.

As a democracy, Israel has the right to choose its own leaders.

But the important thing is that Israelis are given a choice.

There needs to be a fresh debate about the future.

Link to tweet

[ck4829]

23. K&R

[Chainfire]

26. But, Schumer, the government of Israel can do no wrong...

30,000 dead Palestinians, at least half of the women and children; it is neither self-defense or justice but something else. History will decide what "someting else" is.

[Hikerchick57]

30. Schumer is right!

[regnaD kciN]

31. Who knew...

…Schumer was an antisemite?

[dalton99a]

32. Kick

https://apnews.com/article/schumer-netanyahu-israel-palestinians-elections-1ebf21e4c9c0f6f42478bb26e1db7a9b

[moondust]

33. political survival taking precedence?

Uh oh, somebody is liable to think Israeli failures on October 7 were a LIHOP to save his ass.

[Bucky]

35. You'd have to be a moron to think LIHOP about October 7th

"Ignore those hang gliders full of armed thugs coming over the wall to slaughter & rape families, sergeant. Bebe needs a distraction."

This is a classic Hanlon's razor situation. Plain old fashioned human incompetence perfectly and logically explains everything. If it can happen to NASA, it can happen to the IDF.

[moondust]

40. Maybe.

But it's not as if one of the most respected intelligence operations in the world didn't have advance notice:

They were Israel's 'eyes on the border' - but their Hamas warnings went unheard

~

In the months leading up to the 7 October attacks by Hamas, they did begin to see things: practice raids, mock hostage-taking, and farmers behaving strangely on the other side of the fence.

Noa, not her real name, says they would pass information about what they were seeing to intelligence and higher-ranking officers, but were powerless to do more. "We were just the eyes," she says.

It was clear to some of these women that Hamas was planning something big - that there was, in Noa's words, a "balloon that was going to burst".

~

[Bucky]

42. I've read about that. That's why Israelis are furious with Netanyahu. But imagine the LIHOP alleged sequence of events.

Israeli intelligence gets credible evidence of "something big about to happen." They probably get signs and warnings about that sort of thing all the time. Normally, I'd expect given Mossad's record, they prep for it. They'd go on their version of yellow alert. Sometimes they stop that "something" and other times the attack never comes. I'm sure they're riddled with false alarms.

But through all the rungs of the Israeli security commands, this time for some reason, when the warnings are particularly substantive, as there were several warning signs, the word comes down from the PM, or the DefMin, or the IDF high command that this we don't do anything. We don't double up the outlooks, we don't alert local security & police services, we don't divert more troops to the area, we just let the musical festival go on. And somehow nobody in that chain of command says, "Hey, there's something funny going on here." And after the attack no one says, "Conspirator X told me to drop the ball cause we need a distraction"?

There'd be literally hundreds of people on the periphery of whatever cabal decides to let the massacre go on, loyal patriotic Israelis, each with their own separate responsibilities, perspectives, and motivations, but the supposition is that not a single one of them comes forward to say "I was told to not get react to this threat." I'm sorry, but that just breaks credulity. That's not how bureaucracy works.

[prodigitalson]

37. can you decode your post for me....what's a lihop?

[moondust]

38. Let It Happen On Purpose

or MIHOP = Made It Happen On Purpose

9/11 conspiracy theories

[prodigitalson]

41. thank you very mucho!

i did not know that. and would have never guessed it. coulda googled it but gave you an assignment instead

[mahina]

34. Good.

[prodigitalson]

36. apparently this got some attention Israel

[LetMyPeopleVote]

39. Biden commends Schumer for his speech denouncing Netanyahu

Link to tweet