MOSHE HILL OPINION COLUMNS NOVEMBER 08 2023
Democratic Party Majority Leader Chuck Schumer railed against the House GOP in the Senate, claiming that the $14 billion for Israel military aid as they defend themselves against Hamas terrorism is a “joke” and “it’s dead almost before it’s born.” This would be bad enough if Schumer was a run-of-the-mill Majority Leader, even a Jewish one. What makes it despicable is that Chuck Schumer has spent nearly 50 years campaigning to the Jewish community that his name means he will be a “Shomer Yisrael,” a Guardian of Israel.
Schumer doesn’t just identify as Jewish; he trades on it. “You know, my name comes from the word shomer: guardian, watcher,” Schumer told the host of a Jewish radio program in 2010. “My ancestors were guardians of the ghetto wall in Chortkov. And I believe Hashem actually gave me that name. One of my roles, very important in the United States Senate, is to be a shomer, to be the Shomer Yisrael” – the guardian of Israel – “and I will continue to be that with every bone in my body.”
Chuck Schumer has been in public office since 1975, nearly 50 years. He’s been in Washington since 1981, first as a member of the House of Representatives until 1999 when he was elected to the Senate. He’s been in leadership roles since 2005. He just won a fifth term in 2022, which means he’s serving until 2028 at least. You will have a hard time finding a more entrenched political swamp creature than Chuck Schumer. He has been tested on his claims of “Guardian of Israel” before, but never as much as now.
Schumer has no interest in being an advocate for the pro-Israel community of New York, the ones who helped him stay in power for decades. His political interests align with the far Left, who hates Israel and wants to see it destroyed. This past May, Rashida Tlaib hosted a Nakba event, a radical Israel-hating event, in the Capitol. Then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy nixed it from occurring in any location associated with the House, but Bernie Sanders allowed it to occur in a Senate room. Schumer did nothing.
Since the start of the war against Hamas, Schumer has been silent on the blatant anti-Semitism of his House colleagues. Tlaib, along with Ilhan Omar, Cori Bush, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jamaal Bowman, and several others have issued many statements that several other Democrats have denounced, yet Schumer remains silent. Even when Tlaib justified the genocidal slogan of “from the River to the Sea,” Schumer says nothing.
Then there is the aid to Israel package passed by Speaker Mike Johnson in the House. This bi-partisan bill provided $14.6 billion of military funding to Israel. It was mostly voted on along Party lines, with a dozen Democrats joining the Republicans. The funding was taken from money allocated to the IRS in the “Inflation Reduction Act.”
Schumer got on the Senate floor to speak more harshly about the bill than he did about his fellow Democrats calling for the destruction of Israel. “I’m deeply troubled that yesterday House Republicans released a partisan and woefully inadequate package with no aid to Ukraine, no humanitarian assistance for Gaza, no funding for the Indo-Pacific, and, in addition, poison pills that increase the deficit and help wealthy tax-cheating avoid paying their fair share,” Schumer said. He also claimed that the “hard right is trying to exploit the crisis in Israel to try to reward the ultra-rich.”
This is fundamentally ludicrous. Even if the IRS needed the full $80 billion allocated to it from the Inflation Reduction Act (it doesn’t), removing a portion of that future allocation doesn’t “reward the ultra-rich” and “help wealthy tax-cheating.” The IRS, like every organization ever, tackles large problems before small ones. “Wealthy tax-cheating” would still be a top priority, unless Schumer believes that the IRS is grossly incompetent. Additionally, this is future money. Schumer and Democrats could easily add it back in a future budget allocation – everyone knows they love spending money.
Then there is the ridiculous notion that aid to Israel needs to include funding for Ukraine, Gaza, and Taiwan. It’s pathetic that the very idea of a single-issue bill is dead on arrival for something as critical as providing vital aid to a staunch ally of the United States, an ally that has a history of using aid properly, which is much more than anyone can say of Ukraine, which has been accused of corruption for many years, or Gaza, of which the $10 billion requested for “humanitarian aid” will surely fall into the hands of terrorists.
Chuck Schumer is as awful as it gets regarding politics. He embodies everything people hate about Washington. The fact that he does it on the backs of claims that he is the guardian and defender of Israel is too much to bear. Schumer is no guardian of Israel; he’s just another obstacle in the way.
