Schumer warns against 'dangerous false equivalency' between Israel, Hamas
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Monday warned against critics of the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) airstrikes on Gaza drawing a “dangerous false equivalency” between Israel and Hamas, which he called an “evil organization.”
Schumer, who returned from a bipartisan congressional trip to Israel, said he traveled there over the weekend to push back against what he called “the dangerous false equivalence between what Hamas is doing and the response against them.”
He rejected any comparison between the terror attacks on Israel civilians in more than 20 towns around the Gaza Strip and the retaliatory airstrikes by the IDF, which have killed more than 2,600 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza.
“Let us be clear, Hamas is an evil organization that wants to see Israel wiped off the face of the map. They don’t believe in a two-state solution. They want no Israel and no Jews living between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. Eliminating Israel is part of their charter,” he said in a speech on the Senate floor.
Schumer, the highest ranking Jewish leader in Congress in American history, made his comments after dozens of student groups at Harvard University signed a letter from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee holding Israel “entirely responsible for all the unfolding violence."
The Democratic leader is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School.
Critics of Israel have spoken up at other schools, including at New York University where the president of NYU’s Student Bar Association also accused Israel of bearing “full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life.”
Other progressives have criticized Israel for cutting off food, fuel, electricity and water to Gaza, where more than 2 million people live, including about 1 million children.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) last week called the complete siege of Gaza a “serious violation of international law.”
Schumer, however, argued that Israel has no choice but to respond with overwhelming force to the surprise attack that killed more than 1,000 Israeli civilians.
“Israel can’t just shrug its shoulders and say, 'Let’s not try to end the threat from Hamas.' They have an obligation to do it because Hamas’s attack against Israel was an act of unspeakable evil,” he said.
His voice quavering with emotion, he told the story of his great grandmother who was killed along with her family by Nazis during World War II.
“The Nazis said you’re coming with us. She said, ‘We’re not moving.’ They machine gunned every one of them down. History is repeating itself in an evil and awful way,” he said.
“So the bottom line is simple. Hamas must be defeated,” he added.
Schumer said he would work with the Biden administration in the “coming days” to put together an emergency supplemental spending package that will provide military assistance, intelligence assistance, diplomatic assistance and humanitarian assistance to Israel.
He announced the Senate will vote first on the package because the House is in “disarray.”
“We want to move this package quickly,” he said. “The Senate must go first. I know that the House is in disarray, but we cannot wait for them. The needs are too great.”