Netanyahu Says Schumer's Calls For His Removal Are ‘Totally Inappropriate’

Sen. Chuck Schumer stunned the Israelis last week when he called on the country to make “significant course corrections” in Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday it was “totally inappropriate” for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to call for a new government in the country amid its ongoing war with Hamas.

“I think what he said is totally inappropriate,” Netanyahu told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “It’s inappropriate to go to a sister democracy and try to replace the elected leadership there. That’s something the Israeli public does on its own.”

“I think the only government that we should be working on to bring down now is the terrorist tyranny in Gaza, the Hamas tyranny that murdered over 1,000 Israelis, including some dozens of Americans, and is holding Americans and Israelis hostage,” he added. “That’s what we should be focused on.”

Schumer stunned the Israelis last week when he called on the country to make “significant course corrections” in Gaza as the death toll following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack mounts. In a lengthy speech on the Senate floor, the lawmaker said he believed Netanyahu had “lost his way” and was allowing his political survival “to take precedence over the best interests of Israel.”

“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,” Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish official in the country, said.