Rahm Emanuel, a potential Democratic presidential candidate in the United States, said today at the University of Tel Aviv that Israel is increasingly isolated because its political leadership has turned it into a “pariah”.
© Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library
by
Lusa
” Vyou cannot fight indefinitely against a world that no longer believes you have the right to fight,” said Emanuel to a full auditorium.
“They must find a new and sustainable path to peace, security and economic prosperity,” he said.
This condemnation of Israeli leadership shows how far the centrist democrats have gone from their historic support for Israel over the past three years.
About 58% of Democrats understand that the United States “supports too much” Israel, according to a poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, above 45% January 2024.
Half of the Democrats really believe that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians.
Furthermore, adult Jews have a more favourable view of the president of the New York City Authority, Zohran Mamdani, a strong critic of Israel, than Benjamin Netanyahu, on whom a warrant for the arrest of the International Criminal Court, issued in 2024, for war crimes and against humanity in the Gaza Strip, is issued.
Among the proposals that Rahm Emanuel made is the end of US funding of Israel’s military budget, arguing that it must pay for the defense provided by the US as any other ally.
It also wants the Israelis who attack the Palestinians and their possessions to be punished, including the politicians who support and encourage them in this violence.
He pointed out, by the way, that the United States is responsible for “the worst that (Israel’s) domestic policy” by voluntarily ignoring Israeli injustices.
Netanyhau’s office refused to comment on the speech.
A few years ago, the now prime minister named Emanuel “a Jew who hates himself” after he condemned the expansion of settlements in 2009, when he was President Barack Obama’s chief of staff.
This conviction motivated a number of far-right activists to protest against the ceremony of their son’s age in Jerusalem the following year, some of whom were arrested.
One of these detained activists is the current Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, of whom Emanuel noted, in a dry manner, that represents Israel’s political course in the last 15 years.
Before the speech, Emanuel emphasized that he found a strong feeling, among his interlocutors, of abandonment to which they consider themselves subject by the government, which, he confessed, surprised him.