Republicans hug Netanyahu tighter as Democratic tensions with Israel war strategy boil

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joined Senate Republicans via live video conference Wednesday, his face and booming voice beamed into the party’s weekly closed lunch meeting, in the latest display of deepening partisan politics around U.S.-Israel policy.

A week after Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) chastised Netanyahu and called for a new election in Israel, and amid mounting criticism from Democrats of Israel’s war in Gaza, congressional Republicans are seeking to amplify their party’s unconditional loyalty to the Jewish state, in contrast with the party that has long attracted the most Jewish voters.

The push comes as the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee, former president Donald Trump, said in an interview published this week that American Jews who vote for Democrats “hate” their religion — a commentary on Democrats’ growing criticism of Netanyahu’s war in Gaza. Democrats and some Republicans expressed disgust at Trump’s remarks, which they said played on antisemitic tropes.

Netanyahu on Wednesday updated Senate Republicans on the status of the war, as multiple lawmakers reassured him that they strongly disagreed with Schumer’s critiques.

“You know, we’re trying to tell them how to fight a war,” said Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), describing Netanyahu’s reaction to Schumer’s remarks. “They didn’t try to tell us how to fight World War II, or Iraq, or Afghanistan.” (The end of World War II, in which the United States and allies fought Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler’s efforts to exterminate Europe’s Jews, predated the creation of Israel by three years.)

Schumer turned down Netanyahu’s request to address the Senate Democrats’ closed-door lunch on the same day, saying he believed the party-specific presentations would give the impression that supporting the close U.S. ally was a matter of politics instead of policy.

“I care deeply about Israel and its long-term future,” Schumer told reporters. “When you make the issue partisan, you hurt the cause of helping Israel.”

In the past, state leaders have generally addressed all senators together, such as when Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke to senators via video in a secure room in the Capitol complex in December.

But in this unusual scenario — with Netanyahu virtually attending a lunch meeting that is more typically the province of political strategizing and airing intraparty grievances — Senate staff and security kept reporters at a distance, seemingly to avoid the journalists overhearing any aspect of the video address or conversation.

“I think it’s unfortunate that Republicans may be trying to use it as a wedge issue, politically,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who has not joined Schumer’s call for a new election. There are several Jewish senators, all of whom caucus with the Democrats, and no Jewish Republican senators.

In his remarks, which included a question-and-answer session, Netanyahu acknowledged that he was speaking to “a friendly audience,” Tuberville said, given Republicans are “100%” behind him while Democrats are raising objections. And the prime minister said he intended to follow through with Israel’s plan to eliminate the remaining battalions of Hamas fighters, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said — which Israeli officials have said are in the crowded city of Rafah.

Biden has urged Netanyahu not to launch a ground invasion of Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city where much of the territory’s 2 million residents have sought refuge, and where Netanyahu says Hamas fighters remain. Netanyahu’s commitment to the operation has raised concerns that Gaza’s death toll, already approaching 32,000, could rise dramatically.

Asked by a senator to respond directly to Schumer’s comments, Netanyahu said his diplomatic reaction would be to call it inappropriate, and his undiplomatic reaction would be to call it “outrageous,” according to a senator in the room who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private conversation.

Israel’s war in Gaza, in response to Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, exposed some critical fault lines in the Democratic Party, as liberals have wrestled with human rights concerns in the context of one of the United States’ most steadfast alliances. Even as Biden provides weapons and diplomatic support for the war, he has criticized Netanyahu for doing too little to prevent civilian casualties, and for imposing a blockade on Gaza that aid organizations say has crippled the humanitarian response and is fueling mass hunger and starvation. The administration also has condemned Netanyahu’s opposition to Washington’s long-sought vision of a “two-state solution” that would involve an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Biden is facing mounting pressure from a faction of the Democratic base that opposes the war, and is calling on the administration to cut off U.S. military aid to Israel — for decades, its largest recipient. Democrats in key swing states have lodged protest votes in recent primaries over what they see as the president’s deference to Israel, a warning that he could lose their votes if he does not change course before November.

Even so, Biden and the overwhelming majority of Democratic lawmakers support sending billions in additional military funding to Israel. That aid is pending in the GOP-controlled House over Republican objections to funding for Ukraine, part of the same Senate-approved package.

Republican lawmakers, who have often attributed their party’s waning interest in funding Ukraine’s war effort to domestic political pressures, accused Democrats this week of heeding their voters — rather than America’s national security interests — when it comes to Israel.

“I’ve heard in Israel, that there’s a joke that the Democrats are pursuing a two-state solution — the two states being Michigan and Nevada,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), referring to two swing states key in the upcoming elections. “Domestic politics is driving the willingness of Democrats to throw our friend and ally Israel under the bus.”

Rep. Max L. Miller (R-Ohio), one of two House Republicans who is Jewish, said Jewish voters are “pouring” into the Republican Party because of the rhetoric from Democrats. “Jewish voters see it,” Miller said. “They see that, you know, President Trump has stood beside Israel.”

Republicans have spotted an opening in the split among Democrats.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said he had a “lengthy conversation” with Netanyahu on Wednesday in which he reiterated House Republicans’ support for Israel and called Schumer’s comments “dangerous.”

And Trump accused Jews who vote for Democrats of betraying their own people.

“Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion,” Trump said in a podcast interview that aired Monday. “They hate everything about Israel, and they should be ashamed of themselves because Israel will be destroyed.”

Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish official in the country, called Trump’s words antisemitic in remarks on the Senate floor this week, saying they furthered the trope that Jewish Americans have a “dual” loyalty.

“They think of Israel as a political wedge as opposed to a country and a homeland,” said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) of Republican efforts to rally around Israel. Trump “is an antisemite,” and his recent comments provided “a megaphone for one of the oldest antisemitic tropes in American politics.”

“We are allowed to argue with each other about Israel,” said Schatz, who is Jewish. “We are allowed to grapple with what it means to be Jewish. We are allowed to assess whether or not we as individuals or in a collective sense are Jews. Donald Trump is not allowed into that conversation.”

In a speech that drew fierce blowback from Israeli officials and some American Jewish groups last week, Schumer said Netanyahu’s handling of the war was “pushing support for Israel worldwide to historic lows.”

The comments, coming from one of the strongest Democratic supporters of Israel in Congress, reflect a widespread exasperation with Israel’s right-wing prime minister. Netanyahu, some Democrats allege, cares more about holding onto power than what is best for Israel — a state that “cannot survive if it becomes a pariah,” Schumer said last week. Netanyahu, who faces abysmal approval ratings in Israel following the Oct. 7 attacks, has long been a thorn in Democratic presidents’ sides.

On Wednesday, eighteen Senate Democrats — including swing state Sens. Tammy Baldwin (Wis.) and Sherrod Brown (Ohio) — sent a letter to Biden, urging him to publicly set a “road map” for recognizing a Palestinian state. Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), who led the letter, said he believes the president supports the push “in his heart” and the letter was meant to show Biden that Democrats “have his back.”

“This crisis has reached an inflection point,” they wrote. “Your leadership is needed at this time now more than ever.”

Biden has sought to distance himself from Netanyahu in recent weeks as White House frustration at Netanyahu’s repeated rebuffs of U.S. requests has grown.

On Monday, Biden spoke with Netanyahu for the first time in about a month. The White House was unusually blunt about that phone call, with national security adviser Jake Sullivan telling reporters after the call that Biden summoned a senior Israeli military, intelligence and humanitarian team to Washington for consultation over Israel’s plans to launch a major military operation in Rafah. Biden told Netanyahu any effort to “smash” into the southern Gaza city would be a mistake, Sullivan said.

It was time for Israel and the United States to “get down to brass tacks” about their differing views on the war in Gaza, Sullivan said.

More than 1 million Palestinians fled to Rafah under Israeli orders, and the White House has made clear for several weeks that it would not support a large-scale Israeli invasion of the city. That marks the first time the White House has openly opposed an Israeli military operation in the war, which is dragging into its sixth month.

Further angering the Biden administration and many Democrats are the horrific conditions in Gaza, particularly in the north, where aid groups have warned that famine is imminent. Children in northern Gaza have begun dying of starvation and malnutrition, according to the United Nations, and the United States has repeatedly pressed Israel to surge aid into Gaza to alleviate a rapidly worsening humanitarian catastrophe.

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Mariana Alfaro and Marianna Sotomayor contributed to this report.