Chuck Schumer, who is making the political headlines in Israel tonight, is one of the oldest legislators in the American political landscape – and also one of the biggest supporters of Israel.
Schumer (74), a Democrat, serving for the fifth time in the Senate, is the first Jew to serve as the majority leader in the upper house of Congress. Before being elected to the Senate in 1999, he served since 1981 as a legislator from one of the New York constituencies in the House of Representatives.
His call today to hold elections in Israel and the harsh criticism of Netanyahu may have shocked the political system in Israel, but Schumer was actually known as someone who defended Israel against the progressive wing of his party. In 2019 he said that “it is possible to be completely Jewish, completely pro-Israel and completely American at the same time”, and this was in response to the harsh criticism of Ilhan Omar, a Muslim American lawmaker, against supporters of Israel in the Democratic Party. Earlier, in 2015, criticized the Obama administration and the nuclear agreement signed with Iran. “Obama’s unhelpful policy against Israel must stop,” he said at the time. However, later he also attacked President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the nuclear agreement and said that a new agreement must be reached.
Charles Ellis “Chuck” Schumer was born in the Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn to Selma Rosen and Abraham Schumer. His family roots are in Chortkiv in Eastern Galicia (today – Ukraine). He attended public schools in Brooklyn, studied law at Harvard and passed the New York Bar exam in 1975, but turned to politics and was elected as a delegate to the New York State Legislature. In 1981 his career moved to the federal stage when he won a seat in the House of Representatives on Capitol Hill.
In 1994 Schumer joined the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Congress (AJC) in campaigning to repeal the tax exemption for a pro-Palestinian charitable foundation. In June 2010 he criticized the Gazans because they voted for Hamas and called on Israel to “suffocate them economically until they realize that this is not the way”. According to him, the blockade of Gaza was justified not only because of the need to prevent weapons from reaching Hamas, but also to show the Gazans that it is possible to prosper relatively as happens when cooperating with Israel as in the West Bank. However, he clarified that Israel must take care of humanitarian aid.
Schumer sided with Israel in “Tzuk Eitan” (2014), and in 2018 he said in a speech before AIPAC that “the settlements are not an obstacle to peace”. He was one of the initiators of the Senate statement that expressed opposition to Security Council Resolution 2334, which condemned Jewish settlement in That. In May 2017 he was one of the initiators of the law that made boycotting Israel a criminal offense.
In May 2018, the Democrat-watcher praised President Trump’s decision to move the American embassy to Jerusalem. “I was one of the initiators of the legislation for the transfer of the embassy 20 years ago and I congratulate President Trump on the step.”
After the monstrous terrorist attack on October 7, he arrived in Israel at the head of a bipartisan delegation of American lawmakers.
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