Amichai Chikli, Israel’s minister for Diaspora affairs and combating antisemitism, on Thursday appeared to call U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) a “self-hating Jew” and a “Palestinian.”
On X, Chikli, a prominent member of the Likud Party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, wrote that “The phenomenon of Jews who hate their own people is a well-documented and recurring pattern throughout history. It’s called a self-hating Jew.”
He continued, “We see this with Jewish senators and members of Congress in the Democratic Party, such as the ‘Palestinian’ Chuck Schumer, who is promoting the candidacy of a Hamas fan advocating the globalization of the Intifada.”
This was a reference to the fact that Schumer congratulated New York City Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani on his victory in New York’s Democratic mayoral primary last month. Schumer has not endorsed Mamdani, a Muslim who supports a blanket boycott of Israel and has accused it of perpetrating genocide.
Schumer said about Mamdani last month: “I have known Zohran Mamdani since we worked together to provide debt relief for thousands of beleaguered taxi drivers and fought to stop a fracked gas plant in Astoria. He ran an impressive campaign that connected with New Yorkers about affordability, fairness, and opportunity.”
Schumer added that he would meet with Mamdani soon.
Last month, Mamdani defended the slogan “globalizing the intifada,” which many interpret as a call to target Jews as Palestinian and other Muslim terrorists frequently have in Israel and abroad.
“What I hear in so many is a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights,” Mamdani said on a podcast when asked about how he interpreted the phrase.
He added that the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum used “intifada when translating the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising into Arabic,” because “it’s a word that means ‘struggle.’” The museum condemned Mamdani’s use of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising to promote his anti-Israel ideology.
On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump called Schumer a “Palestinian.”
“He’s a great Palestinian. He’s become a Palestinian, he has abandoned the Jews,” Trump told a reporter.
In March 2024, Schumer, who has long characterized himself as a supporter of Israel, delivered a speech that broke with decades of nonintervention in Israel’s democracy by top Republican and Democrat politicians. Schumer said Israel needed early elections so that Netanyahu could be replaced.
“As a lifelong supporter of Israel, it has become clear to me: The Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel after October 7, [2023],” he said, adding that “a new election is the only way to allow for a healthy and open decision-making process about the future of Israel, at a time when so many Israelis have lost their confidence in the vision and direction of their government.”
In October 2024, Israel killed Hamas leader Yahiya Sinwar, marking a major victory in its war on Hamas. The previous month, it killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and hundreds of other Hezbollah commanders following months during which they had fired rockets at Israel. It forced Hezbollah to sign a ceasefire that greatly restricts its powers and freedoms.
Last month, Israel ended a 12-day war with Iran that included the targeted killing of dozens of top officers and the destruction pf much of the Islamic Republic’s ballistic arsenal and nuclear program.
Schumer said in the March 2024 speech that a “minority of Palestinians who support Hamas” are an obstacle to peace, listing along with them “radical right-wing Israelis in government and society” as another obstacle. Polling in the Gaza Strip throughout the war has consistently shown a majority who support Hamas and its war on Israel.
Neither Schumer’s media team nor the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office replied by press time to JNS’s request for a reaction to Chikli’s remarks.
