by Joseph Klein
Selling out Israel during its war for survival.
[Make sure to read Joseph Klein’s contributions in Jamie Glazov’s new book: Barack Obama’s True Legacy: How He Transformed America.]
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) bowed to the progressive anti-Israel, left-wing base of the Democratic Party with a disgraceful speech he delivered from the Senate floor last week. Senator Schumer sharply criticized the Jewish State’s democratically elected government under Prime Minister Netanyahu’s leadership for supposedly standing in the way of peace. Senator Schumer called for new national elections to be held in the near term, hoping for regime change in Israel.
President Biden praised the speech. That is not surprising, considering that the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in the U.S. government had provided cover to normalize harsh criticism of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians.
The speech was a cynical attempt to placate the progressive left-wing base of the Democratic Party that despises Israel and to prop up President Biden’s sagging support among the large pro-Palestinian voting bloc in swing states such as Michigan.
Senator Schumer started out his speech on the right foot by pronouncing his “love” for Israel and condemning Hamas’s October 7th horrific terrorist attack on innocent civilians in Israel. He deplored the trail that Hamas left behind of “innocents murdered and raped in heartless cruelty.” And he recognized that it was Hamas, not Israel, who precipitated the civilian death toll and humanitarian crisis in Gaza by using Palestinian civilians as human shields and hiding weapons, command centers, and fighters within and under civilian facilities.
But then, instead of wholeheartedly supporting America’s closest ally in the Middle East that is engaged in a fight for its survival against an evil genocidal enemy, Senator Schumer turned on Israel.
“Palestinian civilians do not deserve to suffer for the sins of Hamas,” Senator Schumer declared, “and Israel has a moral obligation to do better.”
The Senate Majority Leader has it backwards. Palestinian civilians are suffering because Hamas is sacrificing them to achieve its goal of destroying Israel and killing as many Jews as possible. Hamas is sinning against the Palestinian civilians in Gaza as well as against Israeli civilians. Israel, not Hamas, is doing all that it can to save as many civilians in Gaza as possible during a war brought on in the first place solely by Hamas and other terrorists who have been trained, armed, and financed by the Iranian regime.
Moral equivalence has no place in a discussion of how to fight an existential war against what Senator Schumer himself called “pure and premeditated evil.” That was true in World War II in the fight to eradicate Nazi Germany and imperialist Japan. It was true in the U.S.-led coalition’s war to eliminate the global threat posed by ISIS’s Islamist jihad. And it is true today in Israel’s war against the genocidal designs of an enemy who has vowed to repeat the horrors it inflicted on October 7th over and over again if given a chance.
Yet moral equivalence is precisely what Senator Schumer delivered in sharply rebuking Israel’s leadership on the floor of the United States Senate. Schumer not only blamed Hamas and “the Palestinians who support and tolerate their evil ways” for standing in the way of a peaceful two-state solution. He also blamed Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is trying to lead Israel, along with the “unity” government that was assembled after the October 7th attack, in the war it did not ask for against genocidal terrorists.
Senator Schumer claimed that “arguing over which is the worst stymies our ability to achieve peace.” Schumer echoed Israel’s left-wing enemies in the U.S. and around the world in regurgitating the falsehood that Prime Minister Netanyahu “has been too willing to tolerate the civilian toll in Gaza which is pushing support for Israel worldwide to historic lows. Israel cannot survive if it becomes a pariah.”
Where has Schumer been all these years? Israel has been treated like a pariah at the United Nations for decades even though it has offered major concessions to achieve genuine peace that the Palestinian leaders have repeatedly rejected. Israel also unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005, allowing Palestinians to build a prototype of a functioning state. Instead, with Iran’s help, Hamas turned Gaza into a terrorist enclave from which the terrorists have launched their murderous attacks against civilians in Israel, capped by the horrors of October 7th.
“The Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel after October 7,” Senator Schumer proclaimed. “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.”
Where was Schumer in the days following October 7th when Israel’s Knesset approved Prime Minister Netanyahu’s emergency unity government, which included centrist opposition lawmakers? One of these opposition lawmakers is Benny Gantz, who is viewed in Israel as Mr. Netanyahu’s chief political rival in the next election. Putting internal politics aside in the aftermath of Hamas’s attack, however, Mr. Gantz said after being sworn in, “We will act, the enemy will hear.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu himself may have low poll ratings at this time, but Israeli citizens overwhelmingly support the war to destroy Hamas and rescue the hostages that the unity government, under the prime minister’s leadership, is waging. The Israeli people are not calling for another election in the near term to replace Mr. Netanyahu. They have already endured five national elections since 2019. But that has not stopped Senator Schumer from interfering in Israel’s domestic political affairs by calling for yet another round of elections with the hope of booting Mr. Netanyahu out of office.
“At this critical juncture,” Senator Schumer said, “I believe a new election is the only way to allow for a healthy and open decision-making process about the future of Israel, at a time when so many Israelis have lost their confidence in the vision and direction of their government.”
Senator Schumer intimated his support for reversing the long-standing bipartisan policy to provide Israel unconditionally with all the weapons it needs to defend itself if Israel does not change its direction with a government more to his liking.
“If Prime Minister Netanyahu’s current coalition remains in power after the war begins to wind down, and continues to pursue dangerous and inflammatory policies that test existing US standards for assistance,” Senator Schumer said, “then the United States will have no choice but to play a more active role in shaping Israeli policy by using our leverage to change the present course.” (Emphasis added)
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s negative reaction to Senator Schumer’s speech was to be expected. But he was far from alone in criticizing Senator Schumer’s interference in Israel’s domestic political affairs. Centrists also chimed in, most notably Prime Minister Netanyahu’s chief political rival Benny Gantz, who would benefit politically from holding new elections sooner rather than later. However, Mr. Gantz put his country over his own political ambitions when he said that Senator Schumer had “erred in his remarks,” adding that “external intervention” in Israel’s domestic affairs was “counter-productive and unacceptable.”
Senator Schumer turned on Israel during a time of war. The Senate Majority Leader put domestic politics in the United States ahead of the survival of the Jewish State of Israel. As the highest-ranking elected Jewish official in the U.S. government, Senator Schumer provided a semblance of legitimacy to the rhetoric Israel’s critics inside and outside of government have used to demonize and delegitimize Israel.
The Yiddish terms for Senator Schumer’s sell-out of Israel in his speech on the Senate floor is “Shanda,” which means shame!
Joseph Klein is a Harvard-trained lawyer, and the author of Global Deception: The
UN’s Stealth Assault on America’s Freedom and Lethal Engagement: Barack
Hussein Obama, The United Nations & Radical Islam.
Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/schumers-shame/
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