Pro-Israel but anti-Netanyahu: Democratic Party leaders try to find the middle ground

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)

Naomi Schalit, The Conversation

(THE CONVERSATION) Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on March 14, 2024, “The Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel.” It was an extraordinary public criticism of a longtime ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, by an American government official.

Against the background of imminent famine in Gaza, Schumer, the top Democrat in Congress and the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in the U.S., said Netanyahu was “an obstacle to peace” and called for new elections in Israel.

Leading Democratic senators praised Schumer’s speech, while the GOP panned it. President Joe Biden said it was “a good speech” that raised concerns “shared not only by him but by many Americans.”

The Conversation’s senior politics and democracy editor, Naomi Schalit, interviewed scholar Dov Waxman about Schumer’s speech. Waxman, an expert on both Israeli politics and the American...