Netanyahu reacts to Schumer calling him an 'obstacle' to peace

Here with me now is the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Thank you very much for joining me. Let's start with that potential deal, sir. Around 100 hostages are still being held by Hamas. He will send that negotiating team to Qatar in the coming days to talk about a possible agreement. Release the hostages in exchange for a six-week pause in fighting. As you know, Hamas demands the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for some 40 women hostages. Are you open to that? Are you close to an agreement? Well, time will tell. But Hamas's extravagant demands (and I'm not going to list them all) now make that agreement much more difficult.

But we are going to keep trying because we want to get those hostages back. We also understand that the only thing causing Hamas to hand over these hostages to us is the continued military pressure we are applying there. And so we're going to continue with military pressure and we're going to continue trying to get those hostages out. And we have already managed to remove half of them. I hope we continue down that same path. Let's talk about what happened here in the United States this week. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer gave a pivotal speech and said they have lost their way and called them an

obstacle

to

peace

.

Listen. Netanyahu's coalition no longer fits Israel's needs after October 7. And I believe that holding new elections once the war begins to end would give Israelis the opportunity to express their vision for the post-war future. Chuck Schumer is the highest-ranking Jewish elected official here in the United States, a staunch supporter of Israel. What is your answer? I think what he said is totally inappropriate. It is inappropriate for a country to go to a sister democracy and try to replace the elected leaders there. That is something that Israel, the Israeli public, does on its own. We are not a banana republic.

I believe the only government we should be working to overthrow now is the terrorist tyranny in Gaza, the Hamas tyranny that murdered over a thousand Israelis, including a few dozen Americans, and is holding Americans and Israelis hostage. That's what we should focus on. And as far as what Senator Schumer said, the majority of Israelis support our governments. 82% of Americans support Israel rather than Hamas. But the majority of Israelis support the policies we lead. Go to Rafah, destroy the remaining Hamas terrorist battalions, make sure we don't get to Gaza instead of Hamas, the Palestinian Authority educating your children about terrorism and the annihilation of Israel.

And also a huge majority here, including 99 Knesset members to nine, oppose the idea of ​​shoving a Palestinian state down our throats. Desire. To get to, you know, the. Most Israelis. Senator Schumer, the majority of Israelis support my government's policies. It is not a marginal government. It represents the policies supported by the majority of the people. If Senator Schumer opposes these policies, he does not oppose me. He opposes the people of Israel. Well. I'm going to address some of the polls that he cited in a moment, but I just want to make sure that our viewers understand that Chuck Schumer gave the big speech, but he has the support in many ways of the president of the United States.

State. President Biden describes himself as a Zionist. Even he is starting to distance himself from the way you guys are handling the war. He called what Schumer said a good speech. He said he shared the concern of many Americans. They are not criticizing Israel. They are criticizing you and your right-wing coalition. Dana, there is a fallacy being perpetrated here. And you should do surveys. They will have their own polls and check whether the people of Israel support the policies for which I am criticized, namely supporting the policies of going to Rafah and destroying a quarter of the remaining Hamas terrorist army.

That is like leaving a quarter of the hammer of the Nazi terrorist army in Germany and saying: now we are not going to finish the last quarter and we are not going to enter Berlin. The majority of Israelis overwhelmingly support the position we have to take. They oppose the idea of ​​bringing down a two-state solution or a terrorist state against its will because they think this will jeopardize Israel's future. They support the policies I am proposing and presenting them as an outlier does not represent the majority of the people of Israel. It is simply a fallacy.

And I'll tell you that the other part of the fallacy is that they say, well, most Palestinians don't support the Hamas massacre. In fact, 85% of Palestinians unfortunately support the Hamas massacre. So there are fallacies here. And you can easily see that the majority of Israelis support the policies I have on continuing the war, which is why they criticize me. Well, it's not just me. I think the people. From Israel that believes we have to have this resolution. I think I think we should be criticized, not politics. Line. More. It's the way you're waging war. So I'll get to that in a minute.

But I just want to add a little context to how the Biden administration is responding. Another way is that the American intelligence community warned that, quote, distrust in Netanyahu's ability to govern has deepened and widened among the public and then again at the polls. You are talking about support for the idea of ​​overthrowing Hamas. That makes a lot of sense. There were other polls in Israel, three major Israeli television stations, that said what Israelis also support are early elections. That's what I really want to focus on. Here Senator Schumer is not

calling

for overthrowing the government, but he specifically says that when the war is over, will he commit to

calling

new elections?

That is my question. Want. Donna? Two thirds first, what you said is wrong. The vast majority of Israelis oppose early elections until the war ends. We just had a lot of surveys about that. Look, a lot of the surveys are, you know. Channel 12 says Channel 12 says 64% of Israelis. But all the surveys. Show him that he is not. Now I'm afraid they ask you: do you support him during the war? And they said. That's not what Schumer says when he calls for new elections. When the he. He calms down. Well, we'll see when we win the war.

And until we win the war, I think the Israelis understand that if we had elections now, before the war is won, decisively, we would have at least six months of national paralysis, which means we would lose the war. If we don't win the war, we lose it. And that would be not only a defeat for Israel, but also a defeat for the United States, because our victory is their victory. We are fighting this. But when one commits to holding new elections, when the war ends. Below, everything we appreciate together. Will you commit to new elections? I think that's something for the Israeli public to decide.

But it is not something that can be seen, it is something that the Israeli people must decide. I think it's ridiculous to talk about that. It's like after 9/11, you know, after 9/11, you're in the middle of the war against Al Qaeda. And an Israeli would say, you know, what we need now is new elections in the United States or, if his system doesn't allow it, then President Bush should resign and we should have an alternative leader. Do not do that. Well, let's see why a. Sister, a democracy for an ally. You don't talk about that. What he does talk about is how we helped him defeat what President Biden called pure evil.

You don't just stop after you've destroyed 80% of pure evil. You destroy 70. Percent of pure evil.