Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that calls from US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer for new elections in Israel are “inappropriate”.
Schumer on Thursday had called for Netanyahu’s government to be unseated, saying new leadership was needed in the country.
“As a lifelong supporter of Israel, it has become clear to me [that] the Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel after October 7,” he said, referring to the Hamas attack in southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of almost 1,200 people.
“The world has changed radically since then, and the Israeli people are being stifled right now by a governing vision that is stuck in the past.”
On Sunday, Netanyahu hit back at Schumer, saying his comments were “totally inappropriate” and amounted to an interference in Israeli democracy.
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“I think what he said is totally inappropriate. It’s inappropriate to go to a sister democracy and try to replace the elected leadership there,” Netanyahu said in an interview on CNN.
Political leaders in the US have reportedly been increasingly frustrated with Netanyahu’s leadership in Israel, particularly his insistence on pushing ahead with a planned assault on Rafah in Gaza, which currently hosts 1.5 million mostly displaced Palestinians sheltering near the Egyptian border.
Netanyahu reiterated his plans to attack the city on Sunday, vowing to uproot what he says are Hamas operatives.
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Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed at least 31,645 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the enclave’s health ministry.
Netanyahu dismissed growing international pressure on Sunday, accusing them of forgetting the deaths on 7 October.
“To our friends in the international community I say: is your memory so short? So quickly you forgot about 7 October, the worst massacre committed against Jews since the Holocaust?” he said at the start of Sunday’s cabinet meeting.
“So quickly you are ready to deny Israel the right to defend itself against the monsters of Hamas?”
Prior to 7 October, Netanyahu’s government had been rocked by mass demonstrations by Israelis angry about his planned reforms to the judiciary in the country.
Though the war on Gaza has led to a decrease in the anti-Netanyahu protests, disapproval of his government over the reforms and his handling of the war has persisted.
