Joe Biden on Friday said Senator Chuck Schumer made “a good speech” that reflected many Americans’ concerns when he publicly broke with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over his handling of the war in Gaza.
While the US president announced no changes in his administration’s policy towards Israel, his views on the speech Schumer made Thursday from the floor of the US Senate, where the New York Democrat is the majority leader, could portend a broader shift in sentiment.
Tensions have been rising between senior members of the Biden administration, including the president and the vice-president, Kamala Harris, and rightwinger Netanyahu, in the continued absence of a ceasefire deal.
Schumer’s speech was a surprise to many and attracted criticism from US Republican lawmakers and Israel’s ruling party.
“I’m not going to elaborate on the speech. He made a good speech,” Biden said at the start of an Oval Office meeting with Irish taoiseach Leo Varadkar , adding that he had been given advance notice of Schumer’s comments.
“I think he expressed a serious concern shared not only by him, but by many Americans,” Biden said.
Varadkar also addressed the conflict, saying: “We need a ceasefire as soon as possible to get food and medicine in, to get the hostages out. We need to talk about how we can make that happen and move towards a two-state solution.”
Biden said he agreed with his comments.
Hamas, the Islamist militancy that controls Gaza, launched a surprise attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing more than 1,200 people and taking around 240 hostages back into the Palestinian territory, where more than 100 are still being held. In response, Israel invaded and besieged Gaza and has so far killed at least 30,000 people in the coastal strip, and put some parts on the brink of famine, according to the United Nations.
In a separate statement, the president marked the International Day to Combat Islamophobia by warning that prejudice against Muslims has seen an “ugly resurgence … in the wake of the devastating war in Gaza”.
“That includes right here at home. I’ve said it many times: Islamophobia has no place in our nation,” Biden said.
The US government has publicly supported Israel since the October attack. But on Thursday, Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in the US, called for new elections in the country, saying Netanyahu had “lost his way by allowing his political survival to take precedence over the best interests of Israel”.
Schumer said Netanyahu, who has long opposed Palestinian statehood, was among several roadblocks to implementing the two-state solution supported by the United States, where Israel and a Palestinian state would exist in peace. He also blamed rightwing Israelis, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas.
“These are the four obstacles to peace, and if we fail to overcome them, then Israel and the West Bank and Gaza will be trapped in the same violent state of affairs they’ve experienced for the last 75 years,” Schumer said.
The Senate leader accused the prime minister of being “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.”
The ruling Likud party responded to Schumer by defending the prime minister’s public support in the country and saying Israel was “not a banana republic”.
“Contrary to Schumer’s words, the Israeli public supports a total victory over Hamas, rejects any international dictates to establish a Palestinian terrorist state, and opposes the return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza,” it said in a statement.
The Republican Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, struck a similar tone. “Israel is not a colony of America whose leaders serve at the pleasure of the party in power in Washington. Only Israel’s citizens should have a say in who runs their government,” he said from the chamber’s floor, shortly after Schumer spoke.
Congress is in the midst of a months-long deadlock over passing legislation to authorize military assistance for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan. The bill has the support of Biden and passed the Democratic-led Senate, but the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, has so far refused to put it to a vote in the Republican-controlled chamber.
Retired Israeli diplomat Alon Pinkas told the New York Times it was significant that such a high-ranking US Jewish official would publicly take Netanyahu to task.
“For a Jewish senator from New York, the majority leader, a friend of Netanyahu who’s the most centrist possible Democrat and even leans hawkish on Israel, to voice criticism like this?” Pinkas told the New York Times. “If you’ve lost Chuck Schumer, you’ve lost America.”
The US sees Israel as its closest ally in the Middle East, and is a major supplier of its weapons. But concern has risen among Democrats over the death toll in Gaza.
Biden’s support for Israel has caused a domestic split, with pro-Palestine protesters disrupting his speeches and tens of thousands of people casting protest votes in the Democratic primaries, including in swing states that will be crucial to his re-election chances in November. Last week, Biden was overheard saying he needs to have a “come to Jesus meeting” with the Israeli prime minister as relations fray.
Netanyahu appears ready to press on with a fresh military offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, though Biden has warned against doing so without a “credible” safety plan for the 1.3 million people sheltering there.
On Friday, the Times of Israel reported that the prime minister rejected as “ridiculous” a Hamas proposal for a ceasefire and release of hostages in exchange for Israel freeing between 700 and 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. Israel nevertheless said it would send a delegation to Qatar for more talks.
