A top US official has urged Benjamin Netanyahu to hold elections before he turns Israel into a “pariah” state.

Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, said the Israeli prime minister was to blame for prolonging the war in Gaza and that new leadership was needed to achieve peace in the region.

Mr Schumer suggested on the floor of the Senate that the US should place conditions on military aid to Israel if Mr Netanyahu remains in power and continues to pursue “extremist policies”.

The intervention from the Democrat, who is America’s highest-ranking Jewish elected official and is widely considered to be a staunch ally of Israel, marks one of the most overt criticisms by a senior US official of Mr Netanyahu’s military campaign.

“I believe that holding a new election once the war starts to wind down would give Israelis an opportunity to express their vision for the postwar future,” Mr Schumer said.

“The Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel after Oct 7,” he said, referring to the massacre of hundreds of Israeli citizens by Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group, last year.

“The world has changed – radically – since then, and the Israeli people are being stifled right now by a governing vision that is stuck in the past.”

The Israeli prime minister is one of four obstacles to peace in the Middle East, Mr Schumer claimed, along with Hamas, Right-wing Israelis, and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader.

If Mr Netanyahu remains in power, he continued, the US should “use the tools at its disposal to make sure our support for Israel is aligned with our broader goal of achieving long-term peace and stability in the region”.

Mitch McConnell, the Senate’s Republican leader, quickly came to Mr Netanyahu’s defence after Mr Schumer’s unusually long 45-minute speech.

“It is grotesque... and hypocritical... for Americans who hyperventilate about foreign interference in our own democracy to call for the removal of the democratically elected leader of Israel. This is unprecedented,” McConnell said.

The Israeli ambassador to the US also described Mr Schumer’s comments as “unhelpful”.

“Israel is a sovereign democracy,” Michael Herzog wrote on X, formerly Twitter. 

“It is unhelpful, all the more so as Israel is at war against the genocidal terror organisation Hamas, to comment on the domestic political scene of a democratic ally. It is counterproductive to our common goals.”

‘Far-Right extremists’

US support for Israel has wavered as the war in Gaza, which according to US estimates has claimed the lives of at least 30,000 civilians, approaches its fifth month.

Joe Biden, the US president, has urged Mr Netanyahu not to move on Rafah, a city in southern Gaza, where more than a million civilians are sheltering from the fighting. 

However, the Israeli leadership has claimed it is Hamas’s last remaining stronghold.

Mr Biden will consider placing conditions on military support for Israel if it moves ahead with its military operation on the city, four US officials told Politico this week.

Mr Schumer said in his speech that Mr Netanyahu had tolerated a soaring civilian death toll because of his coalition with “far-Right extremists”.

This is “pushing support for Israel worldwide to historic lows”, he said, adding: “Israel cannot survive if it becomes a pariah”.

The rift between Israel and the US deepened on Wednesday as a senior Israeli government source claimed Mr Biden had undermined the administration by demanding they scrap plans for the Rafah ground offensive.

“Israel is not a protectorate of the US but an independent and democratic country whose citizens are the ones who choose the government,” an unnamed official said.

“We expect our friends to act to overthrow the terror regime of Hamas and not the elected government in Israel.”

The outburst is thought to have been prompted by a US intelligence report that cast doubt on whether Mr Netanyahu’s government could remain in power.