Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer Sunday after he called for new elections in Israel and labeled the prime minister and the government “obstacles to peace.”

Netanyahu appeared on “State of the Union” to discuss Schumer’s comments which were delivered March 14 during a 43-minute speech on the Senate floor. CNN host Dana Bash asked for Netanyahu’s response after showing him a clip of Schumer’s speech, noting that the senator is the “highest ranking Jewish elected official” in the U.S.

Netanyahu called out Schumer’s comments as “totally inappropriate” and stated that both Americans and Israelis support the government’s move to take down Hamas. The prime minister continued to note the policies which the Israeli people supported, emphasizing that if Schumer was against them he was against the Israeli people.

“I think what he said is totally inappropriate. It‘s inappropriate to go to a sister democracy and try to replace the elected leadership there. That‘s something that the Israeli public does on its own. We‘re not a banana republic. I think the only government that we should be working on to bring down now is the terrorist tyranny in Gaza, the Hamas tyranny that murdered over 1,000 Israelis, including dozens of Americans and is holding Americans and Israelis hostage. That‘s what we should be focused on,” Netanyahu stated.