Benjamin Netanyahu is set to speak with Republican senators, in what appears to be a snub for President Biden, after the White House welcomed Democrat Chuck Schumer’s call for new Israeli leadership.
The Israeli prime minister, 74, will speak with Republican Party lawmakers via video call during the conference’s regular working lunch on Wednesday, according to Punchbowl News.
Netanyahu’s appearance would be tentative and comes a week after his plan to speak with Republicans failed a week ago at a political retreat after being invited by Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso.
President Biden reportedly called his Israeli counterpart this week to calm tensions, after praising Schumer for giving a “good speech” in which the Jewish senator from New York called Netanyahu an “obstacle to peace.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to address Senate Republicans this week, amid fallout in Washington from the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
President Biden reportedly called on Netanyahu to calm tensions last week, after praising Chuck Schumer for giving a “good speech” calling for the Israeli prime minister’s impeachment.
Biden has faced growing domestic pressure, particularly from Democrats, to halt Netanyahu’s actions in the conflict and institute a ceasefire.
The ongoing conflict has been cited as a factor in his recent poor showing in the polls, while the Democratic primaries saw some voting “no commitment” rather than sending a message to the president.
While the White House called for a temporary ceasefire, Netanyahu vowed to continue the attack until Hamas is destroyed – leading Schumer to deliver scathing remarks.
“He (Netanyahu) has been too willing to tolerate the civilian death toll in Gaza. Israel cannot survive if it becomes a pariah,” he said.
“As a lifelong supporter of Israel, it has become clear to me: the Netanyahu coalition no longer meets Israel’s needs after October 7.
“The world has changed – radically – since then, and the Israeli people are currently being stifled by a government vision stuck in the past.
Schumer said the only solution is “a demilitarized Palestinian state living side by side with Israel in equal measures of peace, security, prosperity and dignity.”
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (center) leaves the Senate chamber Thursday after his remarks on Netanyahu’s tenure.
An Israeli protester seen Friday during a demonstration in Tel Aviv against the government and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
After Schumer’s Senate speech last week, Netanyahu responded that it was “totally inappropriate” to call for his ouster.
“It’s inappropriate for a country to go to a sister democracy and try to replace elected leaders there,” he told CNN’s Meet the Press.
“This is something that Israel, the Israeli public, does for itself, and we are not a banana republic.
“I think the only government we should be working to bring down now is the terrorist tyranny in Gaza, the tyranny of Hamas which has murdered over 1,000 Israelis, including a few dozen Americans, and which is holding Americans and Israelis.” This is what we should focus on.
Netanyahu was referring to the October 7 terrorist attacks in which Hamas killed more than 1,100 people. In response, Netanyahu imposed a siege on Palestine that killed more than 31,000 people, mostly civilians.
Netanyahu launched a brutal siege on Gaza (photo from October 2023) in response to the October 7 terrorist attacks.
Women walk past a destroyed building in the southern Gaza town of Rafah following Israeli airstrikes
Republicans reacted with outrage to Schumer’s speech, with the Senate’s top Republican, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, calling it “grotesque.”
“It is grotesque and hypocritical for Americans who are hyperventilating about foreign interference in our own democracy to call for the removal of Israel’s democratically elected leader,” McConnell said. “This is unprecedented.”
Former President Trump also waded into the debate by declaring that any Jewish people who vote for Democrats “hate their religion and hate Israel.”
A Pew Research Center A 2021 study found that seven in ten Jewish voters are Democrats.
Trump said in a radio interview with former White House staffer Sebastian Gorka that he “actually thinks they (Biden and Schumer) hate Israel.”
The presumptive Republican nominee – whose daughter Ivanka is Jewish – then went further in his line of attack against Jewish Democrats.
“Any Jewish person who votes for Democrats hates their religion,” he said. “They hate everything about Israel and they should be ashamed of themselves because Israel will be destroyed.”
Former President Donald Trump accused American Jews who vote for Democrats of hating Israel and ‘their religion’
Following the remarks, the White House issued a statement condemning Donald Trump’s “vile and unbalanced anti-Semitic rhetoric.”
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates told Mediaite: “President Biden has put his foot down when it comes to vile and unbalanced anti-Semitic rhetoric.
“As anti-Semitic crimes and acts of hate have increased across the world – among them the deadliest attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust – leaders have an obligation to call out hate through this that she is and to rally Americans against her.
“Nothing justifies the propagation of false, toxic stereotypes that threaten our fellow citizens. None. As President Biden said, he was moved to run for president when he saw neo-Nazis chanting “the same anti-Semitic slur that was heard in Germany in the 1930s” in Charlottesville.