{"id":531094,"date":"2026-07-08T11:02:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T11:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/531094\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T11:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T11:02:10","slug":"rahm-emanuel-says-greater-israel-fantasy-threatens-israel-us-relationship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/531094\/","title":{"rendered":"Rahm Emanuel says ‘Greater Israel’ fantasy threatens Israel, US relationship"},"content":{"rendered":"

The pursuit of Greater Israel<\/a> is a corrosive fantasy, veteran Democratic politician Rahm Emanuel<\/a> is expected to tell a Tel Aviv audience on Wednesday, calling it \u201cdestructive and fanatical\u201d as the chant \u201cfrom the river to the sea.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emanuel, who has held multiple top roles in the Democratic Party, in Congress and in the Obama White House, is a potential 2028 presidential candidate.<\/p>\n

He will warn that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a> is leading the country to a \u201cdead-end\u201d that has turned the country into a \u201cpariah\u201d and is threatening Israel\u2019s historic alliance with the United States<\/a>, according to an advance copy of his speech shared with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

He blamed as \u201cour mistake\u201d America\u2019s assumption that \u201cthe best thing Washington could do for Jerusalem was to blindly and silently stand behind your government, without conditions, without demands, and without consequences.\u201d That path has led to policies including Israeli extremists terrorizing West Bank Palestinians and Gazans suffering from a lack of food that means \u201cIsrael has never been so isolated,\u201d a situation that he terms \u201ca countdown clock\u201d for Israel\u2019s security.<\/p>\n

Instead, his remarks state, \u201cwe need a fundamentally new and di\ufb00erent approach to the alliance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"FormerFormer US ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel met President Isaac Herzog in Jerusalem on July 7, 2026. (credit: HAIM ZACH\/GPO)Emanuel also criticized Palestinians for creating obstacles to peace<\/p>\n

At the same time, he criticized the Palestinians for what he said were mistakes and obstacles to peace over the years. He lambasted their supporters in the US who support replacing Israel with a Palestinian state stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose chanting \u2018from the river to the sea\u2019 need to hear this loud and clear: they will never have their way,\u201d he declares in his prepared remarks. \u201cBut those calling for a greater Israel must also hear this loud and clear: you\u2019re never going to have your way, either. Both are fantasies chanted by fanatics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emanuel, who is a former US congressman from Illinois as well as a former Chicago Mayor and served as White House Chief of Staff under President Barack Obama, is considering a presidential run in 2028. His trip has garnered media attention given that his ideas on Israel could signal the direction of his party on the issue, particularly as they come from a Jewish politician with close ties to the country. Emanuel once volunteered as a civilian with the Israeli army and his father was an Israeli citizen.<\/p>\n

His trip to Israel to underscore the importance of the Israeli-US alliance and to advocate for a new regional diplomatic initiative comes at a time when politicians in his Democratic Party are increasingly disavowing Israel to gain an edge in upcoming elections as the country\u2019s reputation plummets.<\/p>\n

A Pew Research Center Poll published in April found that 60% of Americans had an unfavorable view of Israel, but its standing was worse among Democrats and Democratic-leaning Independents, where 8 out of 10 had negative views about Israel.<\/p>\n

Topics of Emanuels speech<\/p>\n

According to his prepared speech, Emanuel is set to highlight his deep connection to the Jewish state and his family\u2019s sacrifice in bringing about its creation, noting that his uncle, who was a member of the pre-state underground, is buried on Jerusalem\u2019s Mt. of Olives. His father, Benjamin, was born in Jerusalem in 1927 and fought in Israel\u2019s 1948 War of Independence before immigrating to the United States, where he raised his family in Chicago.<\/p>\n

Emanuel plans to recount Israel\u2019s history of overtures in the name of peace and in the face of Palestinian violence during the second intifada and the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on southern Israel.<\/p>\n

He will explain that he understands Israel\u2019s cynicism regarding any future arrangement with the Palestinians since Israel\u2019s past offers of Palestinian sovereignty in exchange for security were frequently met with violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand why, even if you oppose the Netanyahu government, you\u2019re so prone to dismiss criticism from the outside world,\u201d Emanuel wrote, underscoring that a \u201ccorrupt Palestinian leadership has never lived up to the Palestinian people\u2019s legitimate aspirations for sovereignty and self-determination.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, he wrote, Israel\u2019s future can\u2019t be \u201cheld hostage to a past defined exclusively by recriminations,\u201d warning that such a stance will endanger its \u201chistoric alliance with the US,\u201d which is now \u201cat a crossroads.\u201d Israel must embark on a path that pairs military and diplomatic efforts, rather than relying solely on military prowess, he wrote.<\/p>\n

Israel is isolating itself from international allies<\/p>\n

\u201cIsrael will be alone if its leaders choose to attempt to annex the West Bank and pursue the fantasy of a greater Israel,\u201d Emanuel plans to say.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerica will not and cannot be complicit or complacent in that endeavor,\u201d he wrote, explaining that it has erred in the past by \u201cblindly and silently\u201d supporting Netanyahu\u2019s government.<\/p>\n

The speech calls for an end to the \u201cAmerican taxpayer\u2019s subsidy of Israel\u2019s defense budget,\u201d maintaining that Israel should buy US arms with the same financial terms and restrictions as every other ally \u201cthat abides by our laws.\u201d<\/p>\n

The speech laid out a broad-based policy with regard to a two-state resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that rejects extremist Israeli violence against Palestinian civilians and illegal West Bank settlement building but does not spell out prescriptions for divisive issues such as the future of Jerusalem or using the pre-1967 lines for determining the borders of a Palestinian state.<\/p>\n

Emanuel does not mention the US-based political advocacy group J Street in his speech, but the text picks up on the 23-state policy idea that J Street put forward last year, involving 21 Arab states, alongside Israeli and Palestinian ones, that would include recognition of Israel by the Arab League.<\/p>\n

Such a regional integration would allow for Israel and the larger Middle East to become a technological and transit hub for trade between Europe and India, he plans to say.<\/p>\n

A plan for regional peace<\/p>\n

To achieve this regional peace, Emanuel continues, the Arab states would have to support a Palestinian governing entity that would accept the Jewish historic connection to Israel, stop teaching its children to hate Israel and end the \u201cheinous practice\u201d of financially rewarding terrorists who kill Jews.<\/p>\n

Israel, he wrote, would have to halt unilateral actions in the West Bank, stop nurturing harmful organizations and support \u201creal partners in pursuit of peace.\u201d<\/p>\n

This scenario rests on a three-part US policy in the region that would leverage the Arab world\u2019s desire for stability, Israel\u2019s need for security, and Palestinian demands for sovereignty.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe political benefits for all parties would be far greater than a two-state solution could ever o\ufb00er. But to get there, everyone would need to make good on their piece of the bargain,\u201d he wrote in his speech.<\/p>\n

The alternative path, he wrote, is one that has seen Israel isolated and turned it into a pariah state.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsrael has failed to convert its military wins into strategic advantages,\u201d Emanuel is expected to say, noting that the country has \u201clost Europe\u201d and its support in the US is plummeting. US unconditional support for Israel without demands and consequences has been a mistake, he added in his speech, in which he blamed Israel\u2019s poor global standing on Netanyahu\u2019s policies.<\/p>\n

A centrist Jewish Democrat embracing a policy promulgated by J Street, a group founded in 2008 to counter the influence of what was then the mainstream pro-Israel lobby AIPAC, illustrates the degree to which the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and its credo of creating a bipartisan consensus of support for Israel has eroded.<\/p>\n

Emanuel plans to recall his own tensions with Netanyahu, who during his time as White House Chief of Staff labeled him a \u201cself-loathing\u201d Jew for opposing West Bank settlement construction.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu, he wrote in his prepared remarks, \u201ccannot fight indefinitely against a world that has stopped believing you have the right to fight. You must instead find a new sustainable path to peace, security, and prosperity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alternatively, he wrote, the US would stand \u201cshoulder-to-shoulder\u201d with Israel as it pursued peace and security.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The pursuit of Greater Israel is a corrosive fantasy, veteran Democratic politician Rahm Emanuel is expected to tell…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,157140,85,46,18264,43,238,116,59113,14143,2586],"class_list":["post-531094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-greater-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-israel-us","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-tel-aviv","tag-us-israel","tag-us-politics","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531094","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=531094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}