Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) on Thursday blasted Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer's (D., N.Y.) call for Israelis to vote out Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"Chuck Schumer's demand for new Israeli elections is inappropriate and offensive," Cotton said in a statement. "Israel is a close ally and a healthy, vibrant democracy. The last thing Israel needs is the 'foreign election interference' that Democrats so often decry here."
Schumer, who is Jewish, in a Thursday Senate floor speech fulminated against Netanyahu, saying the Jewish state's leader "has lost his way" by forcefully responding to Hamas's Oct. 7 attack on Israel, in which the terrorist group killed more than 1,200 Israelis.
The majority leader, who accused Netanyahu of allying with "radical right-wing Israelis" and being "stuck in the past," went so far as to call the prime minister a "major obstacle to peace," on par with Hamas and the Palestinian Authority's president.
"I believe a new election is the only way to allow for a healthy and open decision-making process about the future of Israel," Schumer said.
Schumer, who as recently as last year shared pictures of himself embracing Netanyahu, is just the latest Democrat to express hostility toward Israel's government as the party's progressive wing criticizes the Jewish state for defending itself. Mere hours after Hamas attacked Israel, far-left "Squad" members Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) and Cori Bush (D., Mo.) blamed Israel for the attack. In February, Bush and fellow Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D., N.Y.) teamed up to host a fundraiser alongside anti-Semitic activists who have defended terrorism.
An anonymous Democratic congressman told Politico last year that he fears anti-Semitism will "grow and metastasize" throughout his party.
Cotton is one of many Republicans who took Schumer to task for the remarks. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said Schumer's "call for the removal of a democratically elected leader of Israel" was not only "unprecedented" but also "grotesque and hypocritical," as Schumer and other Democrats "hyperventilate about foreign interference in our own democracy."
"The Democratic Party doesn't have an anti-Bibi problem," McConnell said, referring to Netanyahu by his nickname. "It has an anti-Israel problem."