Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the leading candidate for his state's Senate seat, said he would advise Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to strike Iranian ballistic missile factories.
In an interview on NBC News's "Meet the Press," Schiff said such a response would be "proportionate" after Iran launched a barrage of ballistic missiles last week aimed at Israel.
“If I were advising the Prime Minister of Israel, I would say, go after those ballistic missile factories storage areas,” Schiff said.
“That would be proportionate, in my view,” Schiff continued. “But it would also help degrade Iran's capacity.”
President Biden said last week he, along with other members of the Group of Seven (G7), opposed a potential Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear sites, telling reporters "The answer is no" when asked about the possibility of Israel retaliating by targeting the nuclear sites.
“All seven of us agree that they have a right to respond, but they should respond proportionally,” Biden said of Israel, as the U.S. and its allies weighed additional sanctions against Iran.
Biden said at the time that his administration had been in touch with Israeli officials in the aftermath of an Iranian missile attack on Tuesday to discuss the next steps.
Schiff — a prominent Democrat who chaired the House Intelligence Committee from 2019 to 2023 — did not comment on Biden’s remarks directly but dismissed GOP attacks on Biden’s foreign policy and Middle East policies as “the kind of nonsense you hear on the campaign trail.”
Schiff blamed the current level of violence on Iran and encouraged the public to “try to put ourselves in the position of a state attacked the way Israel was.”
“We would never accept the continued governance of a terrorist entity like Hamas. We would never accept a situation where our people are held hostage, as indeed they are today. We would never accept a situation where tens of thousands of our citizens couldn't return to their homes because a different terrorist group, Hezbollah, was continuing to attack them,” Schiff said.
“That's why we are where we are, and Israel will retaliate,” he added.
