“It cannot stand or survive as it has been,” Emanuel will say at Tel Aviv University on Wednesday, according to remarks obtained by The Associated Press. “To maintain the strength of our ties, we need significant changes and a new direction.”
The speech, coming from a stalwart of Democrats’ centrist wing, is another demonstration of how far their party has shifted away from its historic support of Israel.
About 58% of Democrats say the U.S. is “too supportive” of the Israelis, 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 that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians during the war in Gaza, an accusation that’s been leveled by some human rights organizations and vehemently denied by Israel and the U.S. government.
Emanuel's proposals will include sanctions on Israelis who attack Palestinian civilians and property along with companies and banks that support settlements considered illegal by most of the international community. He also wants to end U.S. subsidies to Israel's defense budget, arguing the country “should 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.”
In addition, Emanuel will blame Netanyahu for driving Israel to a “dead end,” emboldened by poor decisions from American leaders.
“For 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,” he will say. “That 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’s concerns.”
There's little precedent for an American with presidential ambitions to travel to another country, much less one as fraught as Israel, to deliver such a stinging rebuke of its political leadership.
How will Netanyahu react?
His remarks could prompt a similarly fiery response from Netanyahu, who famously once called Emanuel, who had ambitions of being the first Jewish speaker of the U.S. House, a “self-hating Jew.”
