The most senior Jewish politician in the US has labelled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu an obstacle to peace and urged him to call an election.
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, who has long been a supporter of Israel, said on the Senate floor that Mr Netanyahu‘s government “no longer fits the needs” of the country and that its people “are being stifled right now by a governing vision that is stuck in the past”.
The top Democrat said in his 45-minute speech: “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.”
Mr Schumer, who is the first Jewish majority leader in the Senate, called for “a fresh debate about the future of Israel after October 7 [Hamas attack],” and said: “In my opinion, that is best accomplished by holding an election.”
Israel’s next parliamentary elections are expected to take place in 2026 but could be sooner.
The senator previously positioned himself as an ally of the Israeli government, but his strongly-worded address saw him accuse Mr Netanyahu of putting himself in coalition with far-right extremists.
More on Benjamin Netanyahu
Related Topics:
“As a result, he has been too willing to tolerate the civilian toll in Gaza, which is pushing support for Israel worldwide to historic lows,” Mr Schumer said.
The senator’s unusually direct warning also saw him appear to call for US support for Israel to come with conditions.
Advertisement
“If extremists continue to unduly influence Israeli policy, then the administration should use tools at its disposal to make sure our support for Israel is aligned with our broader goal of peace and stability,” Mr Schumer added.
The Democrat, who backs a two-state solution, criticised Palestinians who support Hamas and called for Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to step down.
“For there to be any hope of peace in the future, Abbas must step down and be replaced by a new generation of Palestinian leaders who will work towards attaining peace with a Jewish state,” he said.
A spokesperson for Mr Netanyahu’s office declined to comment “for now,” but his Likud party quickly said the country was not a banana republic and claimed its leader’s policies have wide public support.
A statement read: “Contrary to Schumer’s words, the Israeli public supports a total victory over Hamas, rejects any international dictates to establish a Palestinian terrorist state, and opposes the return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza.
“Senator Schumer is expected to respect Israel’s elected government and not undermine it. This is always true, and even more so in wartime.”
Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said: “We expect the largest democracy in the world to respect Israeli democracy.”
Blunt language in response to Schumer’s comments
The first reaction has come in to the comments made by the majority leader of the US Senate, Chuck Schumer.
Israel’s ambassador to the US, Michael Herzog (who is the Israeli President’s brother) wrote on X:
“Israel is a sovereign democracy.”
“It is unhelpful, all the more so as Israel is at war against the genocidal terror organisation Hamas, to comment on the domestic political scene of a democratic ally. It is counterproductive to our common goals.”
Blunt language, given it came from a diplomat.
The White House has commented too.
The spokesman of the National Security Council, Admiral John Kirby, said the White House had been given advance notice Mr Schumer would make the comments.
“He did give our team advance notice… we did have advance notice that he was going to deliver those remarks,” Admiral Kirby said, adding: “This wasn’t about approval, or disapproval or editing in any way.”
He went on: “We fully respect his right to make those remarks and to decide for himself what he’s going to say on the Senate floor. He obviously feels strongly about this. We understand and respect that.
“We’re going to stay focused on making sure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself while doing everything that they can to avoid civilian casualties.”
Mr Schumer’s comments came as Joe Biden faces intense criticism from within his own party over Washington’s unconditional support for Israel, given the impact the Israel-Hamas conflict is having on Palestinian lives.
Israel launched its current military offensive in Gaza in the wake of Hamas’s 7 October attack and the number of Palestinians killed there is now more than 31,000, the Hamas-run health military has said.
A quarter of the remaining population is facing starvation, according to the United Nations.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
0:42
Onboard a Gaza aid airdrop plane
While continuing to supply weaponry to Israel, Mr Biden has pressured Mr Netanyahu to let aid into Gaza and began carrying out airdrops of supplies earlier this month.
Much has been said about the students whose protests have gripped America this past week.
Their cause has been framed in polarising ways. A violent Hamas-sympathising mob? Or peace activists striving for equality?
Within a frenzied spectrum of views and noise, one young student sat down with me for a conversation.
Aidan Doyle, 21, is a philosophy and jazz double major at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA).
He was arrested early on Thursday morning for being part of an encampment at the university.
He told Sky News he was shocked that the police arrested so many student protesters, despite not intervening in an attack on the protesters by a pro-Israeli group the day before.
He said his arrest had not deterred him from continuing his protest, which he likened to the Vietnam War demonstrations of the 1960s.
More on California
Related Topics:
Mr Doyle rejected the notion, from President Biden, that the protests are not peaceful.
“Graffiti, putting posters up, that’s all peaceful,” he said, commenting on the president’s statement from the White House.
Advertisement
“I also think that President Biden needs to actually take some introspection and realise that maybe the reason so many of these protests are happening is partially due to him.”
Mr Doyle added: “Protests in general are part of the American spirit. They’re part of being an American. And if we were to just stand around in circles and sing and dance, and pretend everything was fine, then nothing would change and nobody would care at all.
“Part of a protest is causing disruption and causing at least a minor level of chaos that is, again, not violent but that actually disrupts things.”
He denied any accusations of antisemitism, but conceded there is a spectrum of opinion within the movement.
“If you’re going to criticise a movement, I think you have to look at the movement’s goals and their mission, not what fringe members of the group say or do.
“You have to actually look at what we say, what the organisers say, and what is in the mainstream, and what our mission and our goal is: the peace and prosperity of the Palestinian people.”
Asked if he believed in Israel’s right to exist as a country, he said: “I think Jewish sovereignty is incredible. I think it’s an amazing thing.”
He added: “I think that if there is a country for Jewish people that protects the Jewish people, that is of utmost importance, especially with the vile and rampant antisemitism that exists across the world that I see every day and that I try and combat as much as possible.
“But doing that and then simultaneously repressing another group of people, dehumanising them and brutalising them, then the question of whether your state has the right to exist becomes secondary.”
Students, charged and released with a date in court, are here now to collect their belongings. They’re missing bags, belts, shoes, all lost in the chaos of the night before.
More on California
Related Topics:
From the very heart of the protest encampment, our cameras had captured the chaos.
Officers moving in. Tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse. Stun grenades to disorientate.
Advertisement
They were scenes which have stirred an already fevered debate about Israel and Gaza, yes, but about much more too. About America, about policing, and about free speech too.
President Biden said yesterday: “Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations – none of this is a peaceful protest.”
‘Wrong’ say the protesters. Their movement, they say, is the very essence of protest; of civil disobedience which is threaded through US college campus history.
They reject any notion that they are threatening or violent. Yet the deeply divisive history of the Israel-Palestine conflict ensures that the beholder will so often be offended by the actions of the other side.
It was the students perceived antisemitism through their pro-Palestinian slogans which had drawn a group of pro-Israel protesters to the encampment earlier in the week.
The chaos of that night was reflected in a statement by the university’s student radio station which has been covering every twist.
“Counter protestors used bear mace, professional-grade fireworks and clubs to brutalize hundreds of our peers, UCLA turned a blind eye. Police were not called until hours into the onslaught and stood aside for over an hour as counter-protestors enacted racial, physical and chemical violence,” the statement from the UCLA Radio Managerial team said.
Watching the clear-up after the nighttime police sweep of the protesters I spotted two people embracing. A young man and an older woman.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
3:17
Professor recalls violent arrest at protest
It turned out to be a thread of history. One was a student who’d been arrested the night before.
The other was a student from a past time. Diane Salinger had been at New York’s Columbia University in 1968, at protests which now form a key chapter in American history.
“I’m so proud of these people here. I’m so proud,” she told me.
“You know the civil unrest of the students back in ’68 and it continued for several years, it actually changed the course of the Vietnam War and hopefully this is going to do the same thing.”
But then, back at the police station, a conversation that hints at the wider challenges for America.
Follow Sky News on WhatsApp
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
‘Tom’ is a protester who wanted to remain anonymous – a graduate who feels politically deserted in his own country. For him, no government is better than any on offer.
“The problem with our system is that we can’t rely on the police, we can’t rely on the military to keep us safe.
“When we need to make our voices heard, we need to make them heard, and the only way to do that without being repressed is by keeping each other safe and I think that last night and the last few months have really exemplified that,” he told me.
These protests are about more than Gaza. They are aligning a spectrum of dissent.
A scuba dive boat captain has been jailed for four years for criminal negligence over a fire that killed 34 people.
Captain Jerry Boylan was also sentenced to three years supervised release by a federal judge in Los Angeles, California.
The blaze on the vessel named Conception in September 2019 was the deadliest maritime disaster in recent American history.
Boylan was found guilty of one count of misconduct or neglect of ship officer last year.
The charge is a pre-Civil War statute, known colloquially as seaman’s manslaughter, and was designed to hold steamboat captains and crew responsible for maritime disasters.
In a sentencing memo, lawyers for Boylan – who is appealing – wrote: “While the loss of life here is staggering, there can be no dispute that Mr Boylan did not intend for anyone to die.
“Indeed, Mr Boylan lives with significant grief, remorse, and trauma as a result of the deaths of his passengers and crew.”
The Conception was anchored off Santa Cruz Island, 25 miles south of Santa Barbara, when it caught fire before dawn on the final day of a three-day voyage, sinking less than 30 metres from the shore.
Thirty-three passengers and a crew member died, trapped below deck.