Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called for Israel to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a new election, "foreign election interference" that was denounced as "inappropriate and offensive" by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.
"Chuck Schumer's demand for new Israeli elections is inappropriate and offensive," Cotton wrote in a statement Thursday. "Israel is a close ally and a healthy, vibrant democracy. The last thing Israel needs is the 'foreign election interference’ that Democrats so often decry here."
Calling for an ouster of an Israeli leader is a bad look for Democrats, Cotton continued.
"Besides, the main elections that worry Chuck Schumer aren't Israel's but our elections because the rampant antisemitism that the Democratic Party has allowed to fester in its ranks is massively unpopular with the pro-Israel American public," Cotton's statement continued.
"Chuck Schumer should remove the log in his own party's eye before he whines about the speck in Israel's eye."
Cotton's statement came after Schumer, the first Jewish majority leader in the Senate and the highest-ranking Jewish official in the U.S., strongly criticized Netanyahu in a lengthy speech Thursday morning on the Senate floor.
Schumer said the prime minister has put himself in a coalition of far-right extremists and "as a result, he has been 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," according to Schumer.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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