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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described Chuck Schumer's comments about his leadership as “completely inappropriate” after the Senate majority leader called on him to step down.
During a speech in the Senate this week, Schumer suggested Israel should hold fresh elections to find a new leader.
“After October 7, the Netanyahu coalition is no longer suitable for Israel's needs,” Schumer declared. “Since then, the world has changed fundamentally, and the Israeli people are being oppressed right now by a ruling approach that is stuck in the past.”
Watch Senator Chuck Schumer's speech on Thursday in which the Majority Leader – and the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in America – urged new leadership in Israel, calling Prime Minister Netanyahu a major obstacle to peace in the Middle East. https://t.co/DNQ6ULnlxt pic.twitter.com/J82wMalCOL
– New York Times (@nytimes) 15 March 2024
He continued:
Five months into this conflict, it is clear that Israelis need to take stock of the situation and ask: Should we change course?
At this critical juncture, I believe the only way to allow a healthy and open decision-making process about Israel's future is through new elections, at a time when too many Israelis have lost sight of their government's vision and Lost my faith in direction.
In an interview with CNN's Dana Bash on Sunday, Netanyahu made clear that Schumer should mind his own business and that Israel will do whatever is necessary to destroy Hamas.
“I think what he said was completely inappropriate,” Netanyahu argued. “It is unfair to go into a cooperative democracy and try to change the elected leadership there.”
He added, “This is something the Israeli people do on their own and we are no ordinary republic.” “I think the government that we should be working to eliminate is the tyranny of Hamas that murdered thousands of Israelis… That's what we should be focusing on.”
The back-and-forth comes as Netanyahu prepares to proceed with an invasion of Rafah regardless of warnings from the Biden administration that doing so would cross a “purple line.”
“We are going to go there. We’re not going to go,” Netanyahu mentioned final week. “You realize, I’ve a purple line. You realize what the purple line is, that October seventh shouldn’t occur once more. “It by no means occurs once more.”