One of the biggest shifts in the American political mindset over the last five or so years has been the change in attitude toward Israel, and specifically the government of conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. That shift largely followed the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by members of the militant Palestinian group Hamas, which sparked a military offensive by Israel that's led to the deaths of tens of thousands of people in Gaza and the displacement of countless others.
The images of families running away from burning settlements and lines for relief supplies have sparked a wave of sympathy toward Palestinians, especially among progressives in the U.S., many of whom have amplified a territorial slogan - "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" - that Israelis view as an existential threat.
That shift has also triggered new scrutiny about Israeli efforts to influence American elections through political advertising connected to its lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and its affiliated super PAC, the United Democracy Project. AIPAC support has increasingly become an issue in Democratic primaries, including on Chicago's North Shore, where Congressional candidate Laura Fine finished third in part because of her ties to AIPAC.
Mainline Democrats have struggled with how to respond to the new antipathy toward Israel's government among members of the party's progressive wing, and that struggle is especially fraught for Jewish politicians including Rahm Emanuel, the former Chicago mayor, Presidential adviser, Congressman and U.S. Ambassador to Japan whose father fought for Israel during the country's birth in the late 1940s.
This week, as Emanuel weighs a potential run for President in 2028, he went to Tel Aviv University to deliver a speech that tried to thread the needle of supporting Israel while denouncing the Netanyahu government.
"I came here from Chicago to tell you directly where things need to head," Emanuel told the audience, going on to suggest that Netanyahu's actions in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran have led Israel into a "dead end," and the U.S. decision to stand by those actions has been a mistake: "America's silence through the years has engendered the worst of your domestic politics. We've done you no favors from averting our eyes from, in my view, your misjudgments."
Emanuel denounced the Hamas attacks as well as what he called corruption by Palestinian leaders, and suggested that leaders of surrounding Arab nations, and not Israel, need to do more to curb actions by Hamas, Hezbollah and other militant groups. And he recalled a previous meeting with Netanyahu in which the Israeli leader called Emanuel "a self-loathing Jew."
But Emanuel said it's time for the U.S. to end its "unconditional" support for Israel's government, starting with shutting down the decades-long practice of supplying Israel's military with arms and other equipment: "Your economy is strong. Your defense budget exceeds $45 billion," he noted, suggesting that the country has the resources needed to buy its own weapons rather than having them subsidized by U.S. taxpayers. He also called for a reframing of the now-all-but-dead "two-state" solution proposed to bring stability to the region, saying it needs to be a "23-state solution" that includes members of the Arab League.
And he directly addressed activists on both sides of the issue, suggesting that their chants were unrealistic and would only make the world less safe: "Those chanting 'from the river to the sea,' you need to hear this: you will never have your way. Those calling for a greater Israel, you need to hear this: you will never have your way either. Both of them are fantasies chanted by fanatics that lead to perpetual, endless conflict."
Emanuel's extended campaign pulse-check has featured other efforts to cast the longtime political operative as a truth-teller unafraid to speak his mind, including his call for age limits for elected leaders (including himself). But it's too early to say whether his Tel Aviv speech will hit its mark with audiences in Israel and the U.S., or will leave him just outside the eye of the needle.
