Chuck Schumer could have not said anything. Then at least Republicans would have one less thing to which to overreact.
As it is, Schumer stuck his neck out and went there—called out Netanyahu and walked that thin line that is U.S. policy regarding what has been unfolding in Gaza since late October. Schumer tried to touch all the bases, prefaced his Bibi/new election haymaker with acknowledgments of his love for Israel and support for a two-state solution—a solution that has next to no chance of happening as long as Netanyahu is Prime Minister.
I’m not sure why I’ve chosen this as a topic to write about, but I think it has something to do with the feeling that Schumer didn’t say anything that a lot of people aren’t already thinking.
What galls me, and probably shouldn’t, is the Republican reaction to Schumer’s speech. Aged relic Mitch McConnell mustered enough breath to mouth that the Democratic party has an anti-Israel problem and that Schumer knifed the Jewish state in the back. Wow, reactive and graphic, though predictable. Others piled on.
This all reflects the moment and the pressure many are feeling and what people are seeing with their own eyes: Gazans are suffering beyond comprehension, and Israel, or perhaps more accurately, Netanyahu, seems not to care.
It lends credence to the theory in the early days of the war that Hamas could see all this coming, or at least envisioned perhaps this exact scenario—that Israel’s relentless and zero-tolerance response to the events of October 7 would eventually swing public sentiment against them and paint them into a corner.
3 Cents' 