{"id":530781,"date":"2026-07-08T06:45:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T06:45:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/530781\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T06:45:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T06:45:17","slug":"unconditional-support-us-support-for-netanyahu-was-a-mistake-rahm-emanuel-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/530781\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Unconditional support\u2019 US support for Netanyahu was a mistake, Rahm Emanuel says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rahm Emanuel<\/a>, a potential Democratic presidential candidate and longtime defender of Israel, is expected to deliver a sharp rebuke of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv this week, warning that Israel\u2019s relationship with the United States is \u201cat a crossroads.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt cannot stand or survive as it has been,\u201d Emanuel is expected to say Wednesday at Tel Aviv University, according to remarks obtained by The Associated Press. \u201cTo maintain the strength of our ties, we need significant changes and a new direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\u05e8\u05dd<\/a>\"\u05e8\u05dd<\/p>\n

Rahm Emanuel <\/p>\n

(Photo: Andrew Harnik, AP)<\/p>\n

In an interview ahead of the speech, Emanuel accused Israel of a \u201creckless and careless\u201d approach to Palestinian civilians during its military response to Hamas\u2019 October 7 attack, including, he said, \u201cusing food and medicine as an instrument of your military goals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked whether Israel had committed genocide, an allegation made by some human rights organizations and rejected by both the Israeli and U.S. governments, Emanuel said the issue should not be examined in isolation from conflicts in Ukraine and Sudan.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m ready to have that discussion,\u201d he said, \u201cbut I don\u2019t think it should be politicized, and then dilute the power of what genocide means.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taken together, the interview and the planned speech by one of the Democratic Party\u2019s best-known centrist figures reflect how far parts of the party have moved from their historic support for Israel nearly three years after the war in Gaza began.<\/p>\n

About 58% of Democrats say the United States is \u201ctoo supportive\u201d of Israel, according to a new survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, up from 45% in January 2024. Roughly half of Democrats believe Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians during the war with Hamas.<\/p>\n

Emanuel\u2019s proposals include sanctions on Israelis who attack Palestinian civilians and property, as well as on companies and banks that support settlements considered illegal by most of the international community. He also wants to end U.S. subsidies to Israel\u2019s defense budget, arguing that Israel \u201cshould be able to buy American arms under the same financial terms, the same restrictions, and the same requirements as every other trusted ally that abides by our laws.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emanuel is also expected to blame Netanyahu for driving Israel to a \u201cdead end,\u201d saying the prime minister was enabled by poor decisions from American leaders.<\/p>\n

\"\u05e8\u05dd<\/a>\"\u05e8\u05dd<\/p>\n

(Photo: Sebastian Scheiner, AP)<\/p>\n

\u201cFor too long, American policy toward Israel operated under the assumption that the best thing Washington could do for Jerusalem was to blindly and silently stand behind your government, without conditions, without demands, and without consequences when we disagreed,\u201d he will say. \u201cThat has been our mistake. Unconditional support has produced a prime minister who has presumed that his strategic interests would incur no cost if he ignored America\u2019s concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is little precedent for a U.S. politician with presidential ambitions to travel to another country, especially one as politically sensitive as Israel, to deliver such a direct attack on its leadership. Centrist Democrats like Emanuel have generally been more reluctant than the party\u2019s progressive wing to question long-standing U.S. support for Israel.<\/p>\n

The remarks could trigger an equally sharp response from Netanyahu, who famously once called Emanuel, who had ambitions of becoming the first Jewish speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, a \u201cself-hating Jew.\u201d Netanyahu is facing his own reelection battle in October and could seek to turn a confrontation with Emanuel into a political asset by presenting himself as standing firm against international criticism.<\/p>\n

Emanuel arrived in Tel Aviv on Sunday ahead of the speech. He told AP that he is intentionally avoiding meetings with Israeli elected officials during the visit so as not to interfere in Israel\u2019s upcoming election. His schedule includes visiting a hospital that treats both Israelis and Palestinians and meeting with the family of a hostage taken on October 7.<\/p>\n

For potential Democratic presidential contenders weighing how to address the fallout from the Gaza war and Netanyahu\u2019s perceived alignment with President Donald Trump\u2019s Republican Party, Emanuel\u2019s speech represents an unusually direct approach. The war has disrupted political coalitions in both major U.S. parties, with younger voters recoiling from Israel\u2019s conduct in Gaza and pressing American leaders to take a tougher line. The issue has already roiled some Democratic congressional primaries this year and could become a dividing line in the party\u2019s 2028 presidential race.<\/p>\n

Emanuel is expected to accuse Netanyahu of doing little to advance diplomatic efforts to end the war and to warn that \u201csupport for Israel is plummeting around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve lost Europe,\u201d he will say. \u201cYour scientists face exclusion from international research networks. Your artists and academics are shut out of exhibits and conferences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Netanyahu has built generally strong ties with Trump and the Republican Party, support for Israel among Democrats has eroded in recent years. Emanuel\u2019s warning that Israel is increasingly isolated echoes recent comments by Vice President JD Vance, a sign that criticism of Israel is gaining ground in both parties. Speaking recently at the White House as the United States worked to close a deal to end the war with Iran, Vance said Trump was \u201cthe only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\u05d4\u05de\u05d8\u05e1<\/a>\"\u05d4\u05de\u05d8\u05e1<\/p>\n

US Vice President JD Vance <\/p>\n

(Photo: REUTERS\/David Dee Delgado)<\/p>\n

Despite his criticism, Emanuel, who is Jewish and whose father was born in Jerusalem, is expected to express sympathy for Israel and acknowledge the trauma of the October 7 attack, in which Hamas-led terrorists killed about 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages. He is also expected to note past disappointments from peace talks with Palestinian leaders.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut even while acknowledging that history, the path forward cannot be held hostage to a past defined exclusively by recriminations,\u201d he will say.<\/p>\n

Emanuel will call the two-state solution \u201cdiscredited\u201d and instead promote what he describes as a \u201c23-state solution,\u201d involving Israel, the Palestinians and the 21 other members of the Arab League in a broader peace arrangement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 21 Arab nations that have exploited Palestinian rights as a slogan for decades now need to roll up their sleeves and stand up a governing authority capable of accepting the historic Jewish connection to this land,\u201d he will say.<\/p>\n

No prominent Democrat has formally entered the 2028 presidential contest, but that could change after the November midterm elections, with a field that could eventually grow large. Few possible contenders have been as open about their ambitions as Emanuel, a former White House chief of staff, congressman, Chicago mayor and U.S. ambassador to Japan.<\/p>\n

Now out of public office, Emanuel has sought to maintain attention by releasing policy proposals, biking through the early-voting state of New Hampshire, appearing on podcasts and increasing his social media presence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rahm Emanuel, a potential Democratic presidential candidate and longtime defender of Israel, is expected to deliver a sharp…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-530781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}