WASHINGTON ― Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Thursday called on Israel to make “significant course corrections” in Gaza, urging the country to protect civilians, allow in humanitarian aid and hold new elections, in a huge rebuke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
“Palestinian civilians do not deserve to suffer for the sins of Hamas and Israel has a moral obligation to do better. The United States must do better,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.
Netanyahu, Schumer continued, “has lost his way by allowing his political survival to take precedence over the best interests of Israel.”
“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,” he added.
Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish official in American history and the first Jewish Senate majority leader, has been a staunch supporter of Israel following the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas and the military campaign to return Israeli hostages being held in Gaza. His speech on Thursday was a seismic shift in his approach to the conflict. The New York senator has been under growing pressure from progressives who believe Israel needs to do more to prevent the loss of innocent lives in Gaza, where the death toll has reportedly topped 30,000.
Last week, eight members of the Democratic caucus sent a letter to President Joe Biden urging him to enforce federal law by requiring Netanyahu’s government to stop restricting humanitarian aid access to Gaza or lose U.S. military aid to Israel.
“Federal law is clear, and, given the urgency of the crisis in Gaza, and the repeated refusal of Prime Minister Netanyahu to address U.S. concerns on this issue, immediate action is necessary to secure a change in policy by his government,” the senators wrote in the letter.
In his speech Thursday, Schumer also pointed the…
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