Rich Lowry

Rich Lowry

Opinion

Chuck Schumer just sold out our democratic ally, Israel — for Dem votes

The uncommitted voters of Michigan say “jump,” and Chuck Schumer asks “how high”?

The Senate majority leader gave an extrജaordinary speech flaying the democratically elected leader of an ally currently engaged in fighting a defensive war against a hideous terrorist enemy.&nb🅰sp;

The speech calling for Israeli Prime Minster Bibi Netanyahu to go, along with increasingly critical statements by the White Houseღ, shows that the Deဣmocrats have decided that appeasing their left-wing base in an election year is now their top consideration. 

This is bad all around.

As a matter of basicꦺ decency, this is not something that a🦩llies do to one another other, especially not in wartime.

Present unvarnished views in private?

Absolutely.

Try to nudge a partner toward a favored policy?

Sure.

But blast a friendly government in hopes that it can be toppled via a new election, just months after suffering a monstrous terrorist attack and as it is still trying to des🐻troy a terrorist group deeply embedded in an urban environment?

No. 

The fact of the matter is th🌱at this is not Bibi N🥀etanyahu’s war.

It is the nation of Israel’s war.

Netanyahu sustained political damage after the Oct. 7 attack, but his goal of pros🍬ecuting the war against Hamas ༒to its completion is widely shared in Israel.

Immediately a♏fter the attack, Israel formed a government of national unity that has pursued the war policy that Democrats now fi𓆉nd so objectionable.

If Netanyahu were to resign tomorrow, any number of♕ things might change in the Israeli government, but the war against Hamas would stay the same. 

It is easy, sitting in 🐻Washington, DC, and worrying about how to placate the anti-Israel uncommitted voters in the Democratic primary, to forget the shock of the massive pogrom carried out by Hamas on that infamous day in October.

Isr𒈔aelis, though, aren’t going to forget, nor shou🐠ld they. 

It’s a key tell about Schumer’s intentions that his speech engendered a universally negative react👍ion in Israel, and Schumer — who is no naif — must have anticipated as much.

Benny Gantz,෴ who would presumably be running against Netanyahu in a future election, harshly rejected the Schumeဣr call for a new government.

So, the only place where Schumer could have any assurance of advancing𝔍 his cause was here at home. 

What stronger signal could thღere be that the leadership of the party has heard the calls to rein in Israel than to have the previously sta🎶unch supporter of the Jewish state, Chuck Schumer, unload on its wartime government? 

Hamas has been getting devastated on the⛦ battlefield, but the turn against Israel among Democratic officials in the United States is a sign of the success of its longer, deeply cynical strategy.

By doing everything in its power to create the predicate for more civilian casualties in Gaza, Hamas hopes to turn international op꧋inion against Israel, and so it has done so in one of the two major American political parties. 

If you had told many of the same Democrats criticizing Israel today that withiꦐn five months of the Oct. 7 attack they would beܫ inveighing against Israel’s war against Hamas, they would have been incredulous.

If you had told them they would be getting pushed around by pro-Hamas sentiment in their own party, they woﷺuld have rejected the idea as impossible💝.

If you had told them they would have been seeking a two-state solution as one of their highest post-Oct. 7 pr🍌iorities, they might have considered it a smear. 

Yet here we are. 

On top of e🐼verything, this isn’t good domestic polit🅰ics.

There is still majority support for Israel.

T🐲he anti-Israel turn demonstrates, yet ag𒁏ain, that the Biden campaign is pursuing a base strategy in November.

Just the last couple of days, Kamala Harris visited an abortion clinic, Joe Biden suggested there will be no executive action at the border and Schumer — hꦑaving run it by the White House first — delivered his philippic.

What’s fidelity to an ally compared to zeal 🥃in pursuit of an election strategy?

Twitter: @RichLowry