Five reasons why Chuck Schumer delivered the best speech on the simmering Israel-Hamas conflict

The Democrat majority leader of the Senate, the highest-ranking Jewish official in the US, delivers a persuasive speech urging young Americans to learn the horrors of Jewish history | WATCH

Chuck Schumer speaks to reporters. Picture: Getty Images via AFP.

Chuck Schumer, the majority leader of the US Senate, and the most senior elected Jewish American ever, delivered a powerful, moving speech in the senate on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT), urging the young Americans to learn the horrors of Jewish history before ignorantly lashing out at Israel.

His 40 minute remarks were an eloquent, erudite, summation of the Jewish position, both emotional and political, amid high political tension in the aftermath of Hamas’s October 7 massacre, drawing on his own family’s shocking experience, swathes of whom were eradicated at the point of machine gun by Nazis in Ukraine during World War II.

For many Jewish people, this feels like a matter of survival, informed once again by history—in this case, very personal history.

Today, in my address on the dangerous and disturbing rise of antisemitism in America, I told the story of my own family on the Senate floor. pic.twitter.com/i74X3Wexjl

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) November 29, 2023

Senator Schumer, 73, the descendant of Jewish émigrés who escaped the holocaust to ultimately find prosperity in the US, declared antisemitism a “crisis, a fire that must be extinguished” amid a surge of antisemitic incidents in the US of over 300 per cent since October according to the Anti-Defamation League.

It was a persuasive, wise, and politically astute speech, especially given the bulk of students at the vanguard of the pro-Palestinian protests that have erupted across the US would be ordinarily inclined to vote Democrat, for at least five reasons.

First, Schumer, a veteran politician from New York, was careful not to smear all protesters as antisemites or supporters of murderous terrorism, amid an atmosphere of growing mutual hatred and hysterical denunciation.

“I believe there are plenty of people who chant from the river to the sea Palestine will be free, not because they hate Jewish people, but because they support a better future for Palestinians,” he said.

“Obviously, many of those marching here in the US do not have any evil intent … They’re in many cases people that - most liberal Jewish Americans, they previously were their ideological fellow travellers,” he said.

Today, I’m giving a major address on the Senate floor on the dangerous and disturbing rise of antisemitism in America.

Watch live: https://t.co/SeHnGFJdLq

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) November 29, 2023

But the senator cautioned against where such rhetoric could lead, especially under the influence of Hamas, which openly espouses hatred of Jews quite separately from any gripe it has with Israel.

“While many protesters no doubt knew their actions as a compassionate expression of solidarity with the Palestinian people, for many Jewish Americans, we feel in too many instances, some of the most extreme rhetoric is licenced to darker ideas that have always lurked below the surface of every question involving the Jewish people,” he warned.

“What may begin is legitimate criticism of Israeli policy, or even a valid debate over other religious economic and political issues, can sometimes cross into something darker, attacking Jewish people for simply being Jewish,” the Democratic majority leader said.

Activists hold signs in support of Palestinians and a ceasefire, outside US Senator Chuck Schumer's offices in New York. Picture: AFP.

Second, Schumer distinguished criticism of Israel from antisemitism, amid calls from some Republicans including presidential candidate Nikki Haley to equate the two and legislate against it.

“This speech is not an attempt to label most criticism of Israel, of Israel and the Israeli government generally as antisemitic,” he said.

“I disagree with Prime Minister Netanyahu and his administration’s encouragement of militants settlers in the West Bank, which has become a considerable obstacle to a two state nation,” he added, echoing criticism of the Israeli government President Joe Biden first made during his press conference with Anthony Albanese at the White House last month.

Third, Schumer noted that he’s championed opposition to attacks on many minority groups; he’s been a consistent advocate for clamping down on ‘hate’ whatever its target.

“When President Trump called for a Muslim ban, during the first weeks of his presidency, I held an emergency press conference to protest,” he said, lauding the “growing and vibrant Arab community as a vital part of our nation and of my city” while condemning the shooting of Palestinian students in Vermont last week.

“Not long ago many of us marched together for black and brown lives, we stood against anti Asian hatred, we protested bigotry against the LGBTQ community,” he added.

“History shows that antisemitism is deeply embedded in Europe; it is the poison of European societies, just as racism against black Americans is the poison of our society”.

Fourth, Senator Schumer criticised Arab leaders, quite aside from Hamas, for throttling multiple opportunities for a two-state solution, which many pro-Palestinian protesters have advocated.

“Those calls were rejected by Yasser Arafat, the PLO and the wider Arab community,” he said, referring to the Camp David summit in 2000, which would have provided for a Palestinian state.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat shakes hands with then Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres. Picture: AFP.

“Israel did absorb that displaced Jewish people of Arab lands, but the Arab nations instead sanctioned the United Nations to set up refugee camps for the Palestinians, refusing to accept the possibility that any of them would ever be relocated several times,” he added.

Finally, and perhaps most powerfully, Schumer acknowledged the wrongs to Palestinian people who had been displaced over the last century as Israel grew, but refused to concede the Jewish people had become ‘the oppressors’, as pro-Palestinian groups often argue.

“Given the long history of persecution of the Jewish people throughout the world, many of those protesting Israeli policy note that at least 700,000 Palestinians were displaced or forced from their homes in 1948, but they never mention the 600,000 Mizrahi Jews across the Arab world who were also displaced, whose property was confiscated, whose lives were threatened,” he explained.

Schumer gave a lengthy historical overview of the persecution of the Jews, from ancient times to their expulsion from Spain and Portugal in the 15th century, from the pogroms of imperial Russia to the holocaust of Nazi Germany, arguing Jewish history was “defined by oppression”.

For Schumer, the justification for Israel wasn’t a biblical text, which has motivated some Zionists, but rather the necessity of a safe harbour for a people who have been systematically persecuted for centuries, for whom history casts a horrifying shadow still today.

“Because some Jewish people have done well in America, because Israel has increased its power and territory, there are people who feel that Jewish Americans are not vulnerable, that we have the strength and security to overcome prejudice and bigotry … In fact, antisemitic conspiracy theories throughout the generations often theorise often weaponize this very dynamic,” he said.

“We fear a world where Israel, the place of refuge for Jewish people will no longer exist. If there is no Israel, there will be no place. No place for Jewish people to grow when they are persecuted in other countries”.

The horrors of October 7 have elicited blind hatred and extreme moralising among both advocates for Israel and Palestinians which cannot help prevent such a tragedy recurring, let alone prevent the Democrat party from tearing itself apart over the issue. If only more Americans would read it.