President Biden has called it "a good speech," and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday endorsed Sen. Chuck Schumer's floor remarks last week, but the object of the majority leader's criticism made clear Sunday that he didn't appreciate it. Schumer had called on Thursday for Israel to hold elections, saying the country needs new leadership, in expressing frustration over the conduct of the war against Hamas. Appearing on CNN's State of the Union, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Schumer's comments out of line, Axios reports.
"It's inappropriate to go to a sister democracy and try to replace the elected leadership there," Netanyahu said. "That's something the Israeli public does on its own, we're not a banana republic." Asked four times by host Dana Bash whether he would commit to calling early elections, as Schumer argued for, the prime minister dodged, per the Wall Street Journal. Netanyahu said polls show most Israelis don't want elections held until the war appears to be over. A campaign now would bring "at least six months of national paralysis, which means we would lose the war," he said.
On the same program, Pelosi described Schumer's speech as tough love, per NBC News. "The fact that Israel's most staunch defender in the US Congress, Chuck Schumer, should be making these remarks should be an earthquake in Israel," she said. On NBC's Meet the Press, Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin, who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee, praised Schumer's speech while echoing Pelosi in saying the timing of the elections is up to Israel. "I think he was very clear that it's the Israelis, their system, need to give clear direction as to who they want to be their leaders," he said. Netanyahu conceded no ground. "I think the only government we should be working on to bring down now is the terrorist tyranny, the Hamas tyranny," he said. (More Israel-Hamas war stories.)
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