INTERNACIONAL
Following Schumer and Biden comments on Jewish state, locals have a message: ‘Stay out of Israeli politics’
JERUSALEM – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., should not interfere with Israel’s internal politics and President Biden is turning on the Jewish state out of his own political interests ahead of the U.S. national elections in November. These are just some of the views Israelis in Jerusalem’s bustling Machane Yehuda food market expressed to Fox News Digital earlier this week.
Shoppers expressed disappointment with recent comments made by Schumer criticizing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the war in Gaza and suggesting it was time for Israelis to hold new elections. Speaking at a virtual gathering of Republican senators on Wednesday, Netanyahu hit back at Schumer, a lifetime supporter of Israel and the highest-ranking Jewish elected official, calling his comments «wholly inappropriate and outrageous,» according to reports.
Israelis interviewed by Fox News Digital shared a similar sentiment when asked what they thought about Schumer’s call for a new election.
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«I don’t think it’s Schumer’s place to comment on the politics in Israel or tell us we need to do a re-election,» one shopper told Fox News Digital.
Another said Schumer «should worry about his own re-election and try to stay out of Israeli politics.»
«We know how to handle ourselves,» he said.
«We had elections,» another of those interviewed stated. «We have a government that was elected. He understands democracy. He knows Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.»
Shoppers were also asked if they felt that the president, who spoke to Netanyahu by phone earlier in the week and reportedly demanded he send a delegation to Washington to discuss Israel’s strategy in its five-month-old war in Gaza, had turned on Israel.
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«He is turning a little bit on Israel as a strategy because he, Biden, wants to win the next U.S. election,» one Israeli interviewed told Fox News Digital.
«Unfortunately, that’s the main issue with politicians,» another person interviewed said. «They have their own concerns and not for the well-being of all the people.»
Others said they did not trust Biden, called him a liar and noted that the U.S. leader «is not in the soundest of minds, so whatever he says it’s here today it could be gone tomorrow.»
«President Trump was the only president who really understood the true alliance with Israel and bucked the anti-Israel foreign policy of the foreign policy of America,» said another shopper.
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Fox News Digital also asked those in Jerusalem, a city known for its more conservative views as compared to Israel’s second-largest city of Tel Aviv, if elections were held in Israel today who they might vote for.
One man said he would vote for Netanyahu, while others hesitated, noting that while it would be difficult to cast a vote for Netanyahu after the horrific terror attack carried out by Hamas terrorists on southern Israel on Oct. 7, they also felt that there were no viable alternative options.
«It would be very difficult for me to vote for Bibi Netanyahu again… after what has happened,» one man said, referring to the Israeli leader by his nickname. «I would have to look into alternative but similar options.»
Another person responded that she wouldn’t vote for Netanyahu «because I just think he was too long as prime minister in Israel, it’s time for a change.»
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Netanyahu is the longest-serving leader in Israel’s history. First elected prime minister in 1996, Netanyahu took the country through five rounds of snap elections after failing to secure a clear majority of votes needed in order to establish a government. In 2022, following the fifth election, Netanyahu, 74, joined forces with far-right and ultra-religious parties to finally form a government. In the months leading up to the Oct. 7 terror attack, Israelis had been holding mass weekly demonstrations against his government’s plans to overhaul the country’s judiciary.
INTERNACIONAL
Britons cast their votes in heavily-anticipated UK parliamentary election
British voters were picking a new government Thursday in a parliamentary election widely expected to bring the Labour Party to power against a gloomy backdrop of economic malaise, mounting distrust in institutions and a fraying social fabric.
A jaded electorate is delivering its verdict on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party, which has been in power since 2010. Polls opened at 40,000 stations, including churches, a laundromat and a crematorium.
«Nothing has gone well in the last 14 years,» said London voter James Erskine, who was optimistic for change. «I just see this as the potential for a seismic shift, and that’s what I’m hoping for.»
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While Labour’s steady and significant lead in the polls would appear to buck recent rightward electoral shifts in Europe, including in France and Italy, many of those same populist undercurrents flow in Britain. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has roiled the race with his party’s anti-migrant «take our country back» sentiment and undercut support for the Conservatives, who already faced dismal prospects.
Hundreds of communities were locked in tight contests in which traditional party loyalties come second to more immediate concerns about the economy, crumbling infrastructure and the National Health Service.
In Henley-on-Thames, about 40 miles west of London, voters like Patricia Mulcahy, who is retired, sensed the nation was looking for something different. The community, which normally votes Conservative, may change its stripes this time.
«The younger generation are far more interested in change,’’ Mulcahy said. «So, I think whatever happens in Henley, in the country, there will be a big shift. But whoever gets in, they’ve got a heck of a job ahead of them. It’s not going to be easy.»
Britain has experienced a run of turbulent years — some of it of the Conservatives’ own making and some of it not — that has left many voters pessimistic about their country’s future. The U.K.’s exit from the European Union followed by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine battered the economy, while lockdown-breaching parties held by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his staff caused widespread anger.
Johnson’s successor, Liz Truss, rocked the economy further with a package of drastic tax cuts and lasted just 49 days in office. Rising poverty and cuts to state services have led to gripes about «Broken Britain.»
The first part of the day was sunny in much of the country — favorable weather to get people to the polls.
In the first hour polls were open, Sunak made the short journey from his home to vote at Kirby Sigston Village Hall in his Richmond constituency in northern England. He arrived with his wife, Akshata Murty, and walked hand-in-hand into the village hall, which is surrounded by rolling fields.
The center-left Labour Party led by Keir Starmer has had a steady and significant lead in opinion polls for months, but its leaders have warned against taking the election result for granted, worried their supporters will stay home.
«Change. Today, you can vote for it,» he wrote Thursday on the X social media platform.
A couple of hours after posting that message, Starmer walked hand-in-hand with his wife, Victoria, into a polling place in the Kentish Town section of London to cast his vote. He left through a back door out of sight of a crowd of residents and journalists who had gathered.
Labour has not set pulses racing with its pledges to get the sluggish economy growing, invest in infrastructure and make Britain a «clean energy superpower.»
But nothing has really gone wrong in its campaign, either. The party has won the support of large chunks of the business community and endorsements from traditionally conservative newspapers, including the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sun tabloid, which praised Starmer for «dragging his party back to the center ground of British politics.»
The Conservatives have acknowledged that Labour appears headed for victory.
In a message to voters on Wednesday, Sunak said that «if the polls are to be believed, the country could wake up tomorrow to a Labour supermajority ready to wield their unchecked power.» He urged voters to back the Conservatives to limit Labour’s power.
Former Labour candidate Douglas Beattie, author of the book «How Labour Wins (and Why it Loses),» said Starmer’s «quiet stability probably chimes with the mood of the country right now.»
The Conservatives, meanwhile, have been plagued by gaffes. The campaign got off to an inauspicious start when rain drenched Sunak as he made the announcement outside 10 Downing St. Then, Sunak went home early from commemorations in France marking the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.
Several Conservatives close to Sunak are being investigated over suspicions they used inside information to place bets on the date of the election before it was announced.
Sunak has struggled to shake off the taint of political chaos and mismanagement that’s gathered around the Conservatives.
But for many voters, the lack of trust applies not just to the governing party, but to politicians in general. Farage has leaped into that breach.
The centrist Liberal Democrats and environmentalist Green Party also want to sweep up disaffected voters.
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«I don’t know who’s for me as a working person,» said Michelle Bird, a port worker in Southampton on England’s south coast who was undecided about whether to vote Labour or Conservative. «I don’t know whether it’s the devil you know or the devil you don’t.»
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