WASHINGTON – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer denounced American protests against Israel’s retaliatory attacks on Gaza and calls for a “ceasefire” from some of his Democratic colleagues during an interview with The Post on Sunday , while he and other lawmakers were forced to fly into Tel Aviv. They raid shelters to wait for Hamas rockets to pass.
The New York Democrat said he would work to ensure Israel has “everything it needs” to “totally eliminate” the terrorist group from the Gaza Strip, adding that he feels “vindicated” in opposing giving money to Iran. by former President Barack Obama. in light of Tehran’s aid to Hamas.
“If the Hamas threat is not eliminated, they will do it again,” Schumer said when asked specifically about House Democrats, including New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who called for a ceasefire after the terrorist group’s surprise attack against Israel.
The Senate leader’s trip came just a week after Hamas launched its stunning, unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, killing at least 1,300 people, most of them civilians.
Schumer and the four other senators on the visit heard from relatives of some of the 150 people feared to have been taken hostage by Hamas, which rules the Palestinian territory.
“I wish the protesters had listened to the 12 families that we had, whose people, whose family members were taken hostage,” Schumer told The Post, referring to pro-Palestinian protesters who have taken to the streets in the United States, including in New York. and Washington. DC – to denounce Israel’s military response against Gaza.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer denounced US protests against Israel’s retaliatory attacks on Gaza.AP
“Everyone, each one of the senators was crying, the whole town was crying. And I said, ‘I wish those who think Israel is wrong would just listen to these parents and the anguish they face through a brutal, brutal Hamas,’” he said.
Schumer also said he is confident Iran will not see a cent of the $6 billion in oil revenue that President Biden agreed to unfreeze in August as part of a prisoner swap, after Obama’s Iran nuclear deal collapsed. 2015 will also unfreeze billions in funds.
“There is a big debate about whether Iran really planned this event and pressured Hamas to do it or whether Hamas did it on its own, but that is debatable because there would be no Hamas without Iran, which finances them and therefore Iran “Schumer said. .
“One of the reasons I voted against the Iran deal during Obama’s presidency was that it didn’t limit… it didn’t stop Iran from financing terrorism throughout the Middle East. I might feel a little vindicated.”
People gather during a demonstration about the conflict between Israel and Hamas in front of the Columbia University campus on Thursday, October 12, 2023James Keivom
Schumer was joined on the trip by Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Mitt Romney (R-Utah), and the group was photographed on Sunday in a bomb shelter in response to airstrike warnings prompted by Hamas rocket fire from Gaza.
The veteran Democrat and first Jewish leader of both houses of Congress, said he had drawn up a “long and extensive list” of defensive and offensive weapons that the United States could send to Israel to help “defeat” Hamas.
“I told the prime minister and everyone else that we are preparing a big package,” he said, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “We asked them what their needs were. Some of them are for more Iron Dome stuff. Some of them are for 155 millimeter bushings… We are going to give you everything you need. “We told them we will give them everything they need.”
Schumer says he feels “vindicated” that his original concerns about giving aid to Iran turned out to be true. AP
The senators learned firsthand what Israelis experienced when air raid sirens sounded while the delegation was having lunch at a restaurant, Schumer said, adding: “We all went to a shelter. And everything was fine.”
In addition to hearing from relatives of some of those held captive in Gaza – a group that includes an unknown number of US citizens – the senators met with senior Israeli political leaders, including Netanyahu and opposition leaders Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid, Schumer said. .
“We send the message to the Israelis: we have your back. We feel your pain, we hurt with you. “America will stand with you through thick and thin, and we stand with everyone,” said Schumer, who is the highest-ranking American Jew in the U.S. government.
“We met with families who were holding people hostage,” he added. “There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. The horror of knowing that his son is in the hands of these brutal and ruthless terrorists. so horrible.”
A fireball explodes during an Israeli bombardment in the northern Gaza Strip on October 14, 2023. AFP via Getty Images
Schumer said he didn’t know exactly how big the military aid package would be, but that it would be “big.”
He did not say whether the funds would move more quickly through Congress by separating them from the Biden administration’s more controversial requests to fund the Ukraine war.
Asked whether Israel’s funding will be approved independently of aid to Ukraine, Schumer said: “We will figure out the best package to get the aid.” [to Israel] as quickly as possible and in the greatest quantity possible.”
One of the reasons for the trip, he said, was to compile “a list of all the things they needed on the military, intelligence and humanitarian front. And we got a long, extensive list.”
Schumer is the highest-ranking American Jew in the US government.AP
Schumer repeatedly rebuked critics of Israel’s attacks on Gaza in response to the massacre of civilians in Israel.
“Israel has to totally eliminate, it has to eliminate the threat of Hamas and find the hostages,” he said.
“It is a difficult task, especially since Israel is not Hamas and will try to prevent the loss of innocent civilian lives. But they have to do it,” he continued. “If Hamas is not defeated, according to their statutes, they do not want to have Israel. His opinion is that they would do to the Jews of the rest of Israel what they did to the Jews of the Gaza Strip.”
Schumer said Israel’s military operation “would be more difficult because they will try to minimize the loss of civilian life. But Hamas is standing in the way.”
The Israeli military has urged Palestinian civilians to temporarily relocate to the southern half of the Gaza Strip, and Schumer said Israel was working to bring water to people who had moved there.
“Hamas is shooting at Israeli soldiers while they’re trying to, you know, connect water to the people there,” he said. “People don’t realize how brutal Hamas is.”
Categories: Trending
Source: vtt.edu.vn