Democratic leader in the Senate says Netanyahu is an obstacle to peace and calls for elections | middle East

Chuck Schumer, leader of the Democratic majority in the US Senate, and the highest elected Jewish official in the country, said this Thursday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is an obstacle to peace and called for elections to be held for his replacement. The Democratic senator’s speech contains no hesitations or half-words.

Schumer starts from the conviction that Netanyahu “has lost his way by allowing his political survival to take precedence over the best interests of Israel” and that a new election, “when the war begins to subside, will give Israelis the opportunity to express their vision for the post-war future”, he stated in a speech given in the Senate, cited by Washington Post.

What the Democrat says has already been said before, but it is relevant that he is pointing the finger at the Israeli prime minister: “He has been too willing to tolerate the civil cost in Gaza, which is pushing support for Israel toward worldwide to historic lows. Israel cannot survive if it becomes a pariah.”

And what contributes most to this are data such as those revealed this Wednesday: more children died in four months in Gaza than in four years of war around the world.

Chuck Schumer understands that the coalition created by Netanyahu does not meet the country’s needs after the October 7th attacks, that what prevails in Israel is a vision stuck in the past and, furthermore, that the only solution to the decades-old conflict between Jews and Arabs is a two-state solution: “A demilitarized Palestinian state living side by side with Israel in equal measures of peace, security, prosperity and dignity,” he said.

Likud reacts

Netanyahu has always vehemently rejected this suggestion, which leads the Democrat to consider that this refusal is putting Israel’s future at risk. “Contrary to Schumer’s words, Israeli public opinion supports a total victory over Hamas, rejects any international dictates aimed at creating a Palestinian terrorist state and opposes the return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza,” Likud reacted in a statement , cited by Reuters. The prime minister’s party rejects the possibility of elections, guarantees that Netanyahu’s policy has broad public support and responds to Schumer by saying that Israel “is not a banana republic”.

Five months after the Hamas attacks that began the Israeli invasion, criticism of the way Netanyahu’s government has conducted its operations and its insensitivity towards civilian victims has increased. In the USA, criticism comes more from the Democratic camp than from the Republican camp, as expected.

While the former claim to be increasingly critical, the latter appear to be more temporizing. The voices that most contest Israel’s conduct of the war are, obviously, based on the number of Palestinian civilian victims, especially among children.

The vote of Arab communities in the USA could punish Joe Biden in the next Democratic elections, which represents a problem for the current President’s electoral campaign. Biden has criticized Israel’s excesses in Gaza, but the truth is that the US has been ineffective in reducing or resolving this conflict, which has already caused the death of several civilians from starvation.

A ground invasion of Rafah and obstacles to the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza are two sources of contention between Netanyahu and Biden. Furthermore, the second told MSNBC last week that Netanyahu was “harming Israel more than helping Israel”.

It is worth noting, as highlighted this Thursday by the The New York Times, that Schumer’s statements were made one day after the Republicans invited the Prime Minister of Israel to speak, as a special guest, at a meeting organized by the party in Washington. Netanyahu had been invited to speak virtually, but did not do so due to scheduling incompatibilities, having been replaced by the Israeli ambassador to the USA, Michael Herzog.