Sen. Schumer of New York has gone on record attacking President Obama's mild attempts at gently pressuring Israel to abide by past agreements ("The Road Map") and international law by not expanding settlements in the Occupied West Bank. Like 75% of Congress, Schumer was supportive of a aipac-initiated letter to the administration that opposed any public pressure on Israel to bring peace. The House version of that letter directly admonished Obama for publicly denouncing Israel's very public rejection of ending the settlement expansion.
Sen. Schumer stands closer to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not with President Barack Obama on these issues.
Here you can get a sampling of Schumer's attacks on Obama's policies.
Here is part of Schumer's critique of the Obama administration:
All we have to do is leave things alone, and you might get the Palestinians more willing to sit down and actually discuss peace because they would see the contrast. When Biden was in Israel and there was this kerfuffle over settlements which is in Israeli Jerusalem 5 minutes from downtown and should never have been an issue to begin with, but they probably shouldn’t have made the announcement when Biden was there. But Israel apologized and when Biden left, and Biden is the best friend of Israel in the administration everything was fine. But then what happened is the next day Hillary Clinton called up Netanyahu and talked very tough to him, and worse they made it public through this spokesperson, a guy named Crowley. And Crowley said something I have never heard before, which is, the relationship of Israel and the United States depends on the pace of the negotiations. That is terrible.
For Sen. Schumer, he says nothing of the consequences of Israel's expansion of settlements. Nothing of evictions of Palestinians in Jerusalem. Nothing of Israeli home demolitions in the West Bank. He demands that the President also say nothing.
I want to talk about "dual loyalties".
Conventionally in the US, that means that Americans should keep "US interests above all, and the interests of other countries should be subordinate to those interests". The problem is, who defines "US interests"? 200 years ago, Washington leadership supported the slave trade, that was defined as in the "national interest". It kept the US wealthy people prosperous, and they are the ones in the position to define US interests. The US leadership has allied itself with dictatorships from Somoza to Pinochet, supported military coups in Honduras and Haiti, all in the name of "national interests".
This whole "dual loyalty" thing is a bad joke. It can mean all sorts of things. It is often used to stifle dissent. What does it mean to put the US interests above all other nations. who defines those interests? Moreover, the most important question, why should we, just because we happen to reside here in the US, believe that the US interests should be paramount and that of others of lesser value?
So i don't believe in this "dual loyalty" garbage, as it is often used. Just 43 years ago this month, Martin Luther King spoke "against" US interests, as defined by LBJ and the overwhelming majority of Congress at the time, when he spoke against US military aggression in Vietnam. King was not loyal to President Johnson. King was, however, loyal to his values as a believer in human rights, human dignity and the absolute necessity of making peace with justice.
To me, that is the important loyalty. To support all peoples right to freedom and dignity and peace.
It is not Schumer's loyalty to the US or Israel that concern me in the slightest. He probably has convinced himself that his opposition to Obama's policies of publicly opposing the worst of Israel's policies is counter-productive. I do not question his loyalty to the US, whatever that means.
I do question Schumer's choice of values.
Sen Schumer has chosen to side with a particular set of policies that will make it impossible for there to be a just peace. He has chosen to make it easier for Israel to deny basic human rights to Palestinian people. He has not merely helping those in the Republican Party paint Obama as anti-Israel, he is standing in the way of progress for peace in the Middle East.
He has chosen to oppose basic human rights for Palestinians.
Human Rights groups and humanitarian groups have together warned the US and the world of the consequences of Israel's brutal military siege on Gaza. Children are suffering malnutrition on a massive scale, with the prospect of permanent harm to their future health and well-being. 90% of the water is simply unfit for human consumption. This is a direct result of Israeli policies.
What does Mr. Schumer have to say?
....Hamas in Gaza is being squeezed and people there are doing very badly. Not only because Israel has blocked off the border and not let anything into Gaza, and I support Israel in doing that, and it may be tough on the Palestinian people, but when they vote for Hamas they are going to have to suffer the consequences.
What kind of human values does this reflect? When he promotes punishment on the whole collective of men, women and children to the point to where they are denied very basic human needs, all because some voted "incorrectly".
Schumer sees the suffering of the people of Gaza and says it is good. Such values are antithetical to the future survival of the human race. We cannot survive together if we act to impose cruel suffering on other peoples.