Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on March 17 replied to earlier criticism from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
“I believe in his heart his highest priority is the security of Israel. However, I also believe Prime Minister Netanyahu has lost his way by allowing his political survival to take precedence over the best interests of Israel,” Mr. Schumer said.
Mr. Netanyahu’s political coalition “no longer fits the needs of Israel after Oct. 7,” Mr. Schumer wrote in a social media post with a clip from his floor speech. “I believe that holding a new election once the war starts to wind down, would give Israelis an opportunity to express their vision for the post war future.”
“I think what he said is totally inappropriate,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “It’s inappropriate to go to a sister democracy and try to replace the elected leadership there. That’s something that the Israeli public does on its own. We are not a banana republic.
“I think the only government that we should be working on to bring down now is the terrorist tyranny in Gaza, the Hamas tyranny that murdered over 1,000 Israelis, including some dozens of Americans, and is holding Americans and Israelis hostage—that’s what we should be focused on.”
He cited Israeli opinion polls showing that a broad majority—82 percent according to numbers he cited—support how his conservative government is conducting the war.
“The majority of Israelis support the policies of my government,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “It’s not a fringe government. It represents policies supported by the majority of the people. If Senator Schumer opposes these policies, he is not opposing me. He’s opposing the people of Israel.”
He said failing to wipe out Hamas in Gaza would be comparable to failing to go into Berlin at the end of World War II.
Mr Netanyahu noted that most Israelis support going into Rafah to take out Hamas, and he said that they “oppose the idea of ramming down a two-state solution or a terrorist state against their will.”
No Commitment to Postwar Elections
Mr. Netanyahu also refused to commit to holding new elections at the close of the war, as demanded by Mr. Schumer.“We'll see when we win the war, and until we win the war, I think Israelis understand that if we were to have elections now, before the war is one resoundingly won, we would have at least six months of national paralysis, which means we would lose the war,” he said.
“If we don’t win the war, we lose the war. And that would be not only a defeat for Israel, but a defeat for America too, because our victory is your victory. We’re fighting these barbarians.”
Pressed further on the issue, Mr. Netanyahu said the issue is one “for the Israeli public to decide.”
“I think it’s ridiculous to talk about it,” he said.
Netanyahu ‘Proved the Necessity’ of Schumer’s Speech: Pelosi
Appearing on the same show immediately after Mr. Netanyahu, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said the prime minister’s comments “proved the necessity” of what Mr. Schumer said.“Chuck Schumer’s speech was an act of courage, an act of love for Israel,” Ms. Pelosi said. “And I wish the prime minister would read the whole speech because he speaks with great vehemence about the need to defeat Hamas.”
She expressed support for Mr. Schumer’s comments, citing the “very, very dangerous attitude of the right-wing Israeli government.”
Ms. Pelosi also condemned Mr. Netanyahu’s refusal to commit to holding new elections.
“What does that say, if he ... won’t even say that, as the war winds down, the people of Israel should speak—that’s all Chuck was saying,” she said.
Mr. Schumer’s comments come as some U.S. lawmakers, primarily in the Democratic Party, have called for a ceasefire in the current Gaza conflict and sought to limit U.S. military aid for Israel.
The issue has divided Democrats, with many in the party, especially younger voters, insistent on a ceasefire and characterizing Israeli military actions in the region as a “genocide.”
The war has raged in the region since Hamas terrorists killed more than 1,000 Israelis in a surprise attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
Since then, thousands of innocents on both sides have died, and the issue has increasingly affected President Joe Biden’s favorability with the younger members of his party.
