US Senator Chuck Schumer stood at the Senate podium and laid out his vision of the "four obstacles to peace". These, according to the Senate Majority Leader were, Hamas, "right wing Israelis", PLO terrorist leader Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Having equated Israeli conservatives with Hamas, Schumer demanded that Israel call a new election and remove its current government from power. And if Israelis did not choose to obey, he warned that the "United States will have no choice but to play a more active role in shaping Israeli policy by using our leverage to change the present course."
That is an obvious euphemism for anything from the withdrawal of aid to economic sanctions.
If the Israelis vote wrongly again, the Biden administration "should use the tools at its disposal to make sure our support for Israel is aligned with our broader goal of achieving long-term peace and stability." Peace and stability paradoxically means a "Palestinian" terrorist state.
What did Netanyahu do wrong? According to Schumer, he won't commit to a terrorist state and insists on finishing off Hamas in Rafah. Or, as Schumer put it in his Orwellian tortured diction, he "won't commit to a military operation in Rafah that prioritizes protecting civilian life." The kind of operation the Biden administration has in mind is a few targeted strikes on Hamas leaders when no civilians are around. That's the way we fought and lost in Afghanistan. Biden would like to turn Israel into another Afghanistan with Hamas as the Taliban.
In plain language, Schumer is warning Israel to stop its war on Hamas or face sanctions.
The subtext is that Schumer and the Democratic leadership have come around to giving Hamas a pass in order to appease the Hamas supporters of Dearborn, Michigan.
Schumer was more or less subtle about it, while the Jewish Democratic Council of America (JDCA) said the quiet part out loud in its statement praising his speech "as we consider an end to this conflict, which has taken far too many innocent lives." That line could have come from J Street.
In his speech, Schumer whined that he was "anguished that the Israeli war campaign has killed so many innocent Palestinians" and warned that "Israel has a moral obligation to do better." The leftist politician clamored that "what horrifies so many Jews especially is our sense that Israel is falling short of upholding these distinctly Jewish values."
This familiar "as a Jew" rhetoric is largely indistinguishable from that of anti-Israel groups such as J Street and JVP except that Schumer still hedges somewhat by blaming Hamas for it. Schumer even manages to suggest that proponents of destroying Israel are motivated by "idealism". Meanwhile, Jewish opponents of a terrorist state are "offensive" and "extremist".
The political hack who calls himself "the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in our government" took half a year after October 7 to begin denouncing Israel's war on Hamas.
But Schumer is hardly alone. The JDCA has made the same pivot. So have many Jewish Democrat officials, all responding to Biden's call for a "Come to Jesus meeting" with Netanyahu. The actual call however is coming from another deity entirely who is worshiped in Dearborn, Michigan.
Biden is desperate to end the war in order to appease Muslim Democrats in Michigan who have made no secret of their support for the terrorists. And Schumer and the JDCA put party first. Their strategy of "Netanyahuizing" the conflict is as dishonest as when Obama framed opposition to his bailout of Iran's terrorist regime in terms of Netanyahu, not American Jews.
The JDCA wants an "end to this conflict" and Schumer keeps claiming that he wants to see Hamas gone, yet warns that any attempt to finish it off in Rafah is unacceptable. The only acceptable answer to Oct 7, according to Biden, Schumer and the Democrats, is a terror state.
And, Schumer argued, if Israel refuses to create a terror state, "then what reasonable expectation can we have that Hamas and their allies will lay down their arms?"
What reasonable expectation should anyone ever have that Hamas will lay down its arms?
But it's a slip that reveals that the actual vision is not to defeat Hamas, but to reach some phantom deal with it in which it will "lay down its arms". There are more slips throughout the speech for those who pay close attention. "There can never be a two-state solution if Hamas has any significant power," Schumer says at one point. "Any proposal that leaves Hamas with meaningful power is unacceptable to me and most all Israelis."
What do "meaningful" and "significant" amounts of power mean?
I previously reported on the Moscow summit with the Palestinian Authority (PA), Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups, where the various killers agreed to let the PA represent the "Palestinian cause." This is part of a plan to put forward a "technocratic" government that would not contain members of Hamas, but which would still represent and take orders from Hamas.
Under such a false flag, Hamas would retain power without having an official role.
Schumer and the Democrats may deny that this is what they want, but the simple fact is that nowhere in the extended speech does he call for the defeat of Hamas. Schumer knows the term and used it in his speech on antisemitism back in November, describing the "Israeli army's action to defeat Hamas in self-defense of their people," Now defeating Hamas is off the table.
Instead, Schumer concludes by praising "families of the victims of October 7 who have been calling for peace, asking their government to transcend the cycle of bloodshed and revenge."
This is the new narrative.
Fighting Hamas would be perpetuating the "cycle of bloodshed and revenge" while giving the terrorists who murdered over a thousand people their own state would be an act of peace.
As polls show the vast majority of Israelis want to finish off Hamas, the self-proclaimed "highest-ranking Jewish elected official in our government" threatens that actions will be taken against them if they don't vote for pro-terrorist leftists and stop their struggle against Hamas.
The Arab Muslim occupiers of Judea and Samaria, Schumer contends, have their "own distinct culture, identity, cuisine" and since they have their own cuisine, the "idea espoused by some that 'there is no such thing as Palestinians' today is inaccurate, offensive, and unhelpful."
It's accurate, but unfortunately offensive and unhelpful to winning Michigan in 2024.
Despite polls showing that the overwhelming majority of Arab Muslims living in the terrorist occupied territories support Hamas, support the atrocities of Oct 7, and oppose peace, Schumer and his Jewish Democrat allies have decided to roll back the clock to Oct 6. To once again begin pretending that there is an Arab Muslim constituency for peace and that the moment Netanyahu and "right wing Israelis" get out of the way, peace will arise out of thin air.
Schumer's speech is cynical and dishonest. It's a betrayal of American and Jewish values. And it marks a craven surrender to the supporters of Hamas inside his movement and his party. After a few months of standing with Israel, the Dems, with the exception of a handful of elected officials, like Senator Jon Fetterman, have come out against any further campaign to stop Hamas.
The terrorists may not have won in Israel, but they have triumphed within the Democratic Party.
Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine.
Ella