Opinion: What to make of Schumer’s scathing speech on Netanyahu

Editor’s Note: Aaron David Miller is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of “The End of Greatness: Why America Can’t Have (and Doesn’t Want) Another Great President.” Miller was a Middle East negotiator in Democratic and Republican administrations. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. Read more opinion at CNN.

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In my 27 years of working for Republican and Democratic administrations on Arab-Israeli issues and watching Congress in the process, no pro-Israeli politician, let alone a Senate majority leader, ever gave a speech like Chuck Schumer did last Thursday on the Senate floor. For a guy who opened his remarks by noting, as he often does, that his last name derives from the Hebrew root for “guardian” that’s his mission when it comes to Israel, it was something of an epiphany.

Like Howard Beale in the classic 1976 film “Network,” Schumer’s tough words on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu conveyed the sense that he was ‘‘mad as hell and wasn’t going to take it anymore.” Calling for new elections in Israel, Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in the US, pounded on the failed policies of Netanyahu’s government and called for Israelis to replace the prime minister.

Words matter in the context of the US-Israeli relationship, although deeds matter more. So, is Schumer’s speech likely to have a major impact in Israel or on Biden administration policy? Are we on the cusp of a major crisis in the US-Israeli relationship? Here are some takeaways.

It may be too early to measure the full impact of Schumer’s groundbreaking speech. Israelis value their relationship with Washington and would impose a cost on a prime minister who was perceived to have profoundly mishandled it. And accountability for Netanyahu may only be a matter of time. But for now, if the Senate majority leader expected a tsunami of “atta boys” from Israel’s political class, he might be sadly disappointed.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid quickly weighed, in saying Schumer’s speech is “proof that one by one Netanyahu is losing Israel’s biggest supporters in the US.” But the reaction from a broad array of Israeli politicians seemed much more restrained and, in some cases, quite critical.

Not surprisingly, Netanyahu’s Likud Party challenged Schumer, asserting that “Israel is an independent and proud democracy that elected Prime Minister Netanyahu, not a banana republic.”  Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett echoed that sentiment in a statement he posted on X, formerly Twitter, saying he opposed any “external political intervention in Israel’s internal affairs.” Benny Gantz, the putative successor to the current prime minister, said in a post on X that Schumer “erred in his remarks,” but that he “plays an important role in assisting the State of Israel, including during these difficult times.” Gantz added that, “Any external interference on the matter is counter-productive and unacceptable.”

Netanyahu, in an interview with CNN on Saturday, called Schumer’s remarks “totally inappropriate. It’s inappropriate to go to a sister democracy and try to replace the elected leadership there. That’s something the Israeli public does on its own. We’re not a banana republic.”

The senator’s tough words will only reinforce his suspicions that Washington is out to unseat him. And that will more than likely compel him to draw the wagons more tightly around him.

For Netanyahu, political survival is the key and that means listening above all to his coalition partners, not to Democrats in the Senate on whom Netanyahu had given up long ago. If anything, Schumer’s speech will solidify Netanyahu’s conviction that his political future — if he has one — lies with the Republican Party and the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump. (Trump and Netanyahu have had a tense relationship since the Israeli prime minister congratulated Biden on his 2020 victory while Trump was disputing the…