by Fern Sidman in The Jewish Voice
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has made a highly controversial call for new elections in Israel, as he heaped sharp criticism on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government during a speech on the Senate floor on Thursday regarding the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, as was reported on CNN. Schumer, a self-proclaimed supporter of Israel and the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in America, highlighted what he views as the need for a change in direction for the Israeli government.
“As a lifelong supporter of Israel, it has become clear to me: The Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel after October 7,” Schumer stated, referencing the date of the Hamas terror attack on Israel in which 1200 Israelis were brutally massacred, scores of women and girls raped and murdered, and 250 people taken hostage, according to the information provided in the CNN report. “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,” he added.
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“Five months into this conflict, it is clear that Israelis need to take stock of the situation and ask: must we change course?” he continued. “At this critical juncture, I believe a new election is the only way to allow for a healthy and open decision-making process about the future of Israel, at a time when so many Israelis have lost their confidence in the vision and direction of their government.”
Schumer also said his “heart also breaks at the loss of so many civilian lives in Gaza,” the CNN report indicated.
Schumer criticized Netanyahu for aligning himself with far-right extremists in the Israeli government, saying he has turned away from a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians, according to a report on Axios. Biden supports such a plan.
Also on Thursday, in a statement sent to the media, the Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), representing over 2,500 traditional, Orthodox rabbis in American public policy, rebuked Schumer for his “counterproductive interference” in Israel’s democratic government, in his floor speech that has generated enormous controversy.
CJV President Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld said the following in the CJV statement: “The leader who has ‘lost his way’ here is Sen. Schumer himself, who is using Netanyahu as a bogeyman for hatred directed against Jews for having the temerity to defend Jewish lives. Every Israeli, and every committed Jew, recognizes the malignant hatred of those calling Israel ‘genocidal’ as it eliminates a genocidal terror organization, or calling for a ‘ceasefire’ to permit the terrorists to regroup, rearm, and again murder the innocent.
See the full article in The Jewish Voice
Photo Credit: Gregory Hauenstein on Flickr