Rahm Emanuel, a prominent Jewish Democrat weighing a 2028 presidential run, warned Israelis at Tel Aviv University on Wednesday that their country\u2019s bond with the US is fraying just as a new AP-NORC poll showed many American Jews feel politically stranded, anxious about antisemitism, and uneasy with both major parties.<\/p>\n
The timing was brutal, and not accidental. Emanuel, a former Chicago mayor, congressman, White House chief of staff, and US ambassador to Japan, delivered his warning in Tel Aviv as American politics keeps shifting under Israel\u2019s feet. Once the safest of bipartisan bets, support for Israel has become one of the Democratic Party\u2019s sharpest internal fights, especially since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks and Israel\u2019s long war in Gaza.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou cannot fight indefinitely against a world that has stopped believing you have the right to fight,\u201d Emanuel said. \u201cYou must instead find a new sustainable path to peace, security, and economic prosperity.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 63% of Jewish adults in the US consider antisemitism an extremely or very serious problem, while 77% say anti-Jewish prejudice has increased compared with three years ago. Yet only 15% say the Democratic Party supports Jews in the US extremely or very well, and about half say President Donald Trump and Republicans do not support Jews well either.<\/p>\n
That leaves a politically loyal but increasingly restless constituency in a strange place: deeply alarmed by antisemitism, divided over Israel, and unconvinced that either party has a credible answer.<\/p>\n
Emanuel aimed his fire squarely at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s government, saying Israel cannot count forever on automatic American backing while settlement expansion, violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, restrictions on aid to Gaza, and the absence of a postwar political plan keep eroding support abroad.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout question, the alliance is at a crossroads. It cannot stand or survive as it has been. To maintain the strength of our ties, this alliance needs significant changes and a new direction,\u201d Emanuel said.<\/p>\n
His prescription was stern: end special US defense subsidies, make Israel buy American weapons on standard allied terms, sanction Israelis involved in attacks on Palestinian civilians or property, and pursue a broader regional framework that ties Arab normalization, Israeli security, and Palestinian sovereignty into one diplomatic track.<\/p>\n
The AP-NORC findings suggest why that message may land harder now. About 4 in 10 Jewish adults say the US is too supportive of Israel, while about 3 in 10 say it is not supportive enough. Only about one-third view Netanyahu favorably.<\/p>\n
For Israel, the old Washington math still works in parts. President Trump remains closely aligned with Netanyahu, and Republican support is still far stronger than Democratic support. But Emanuel\u2019s speech and the polling point to the same uncomfortable reality: Israel\u2019s American problem is no longer confined to campus activists or the party\u2019s left flank. It is moving toward the center of Jewish and Democratic political life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rahm Emanuel, a prominent Jewish Democrat weighing a 2028 presidential run, warned Israelis at Tel Aviv University on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-533003","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\/533003","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=533003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}