Emanuel (D), a former ambassador, congressmen, and mayor who also worked for Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, made the remarks at Tel Aviv University Wednesday.
(Watch full speech below.)
He said the U.S. and Israel are friends, but America's long-standing unconditional backing was a mistake that has allowed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ignore U.S. concerns on settlements, regional warfare, and humanitarian crises in Gaza without political cost.
"For too long, American policy towards Israel operated under the assumption that the best thing Washington can do for Jerusalem is to blindly, to silently stand behind your government without conditions, without demands, without consequences, even when we disagreed," said Emanuel. "That has been our mistake, and it's been not a favor to you."
"Unconditional support has allowed you to deny food and medical relief to innocent Palestinians in Gaza, leaving the world to conclude that Israelis not only want to kill Palestinians, but they are completely indifferent to their death, to their destruction, and completely indifferent to their suffering," Emanuel continued. "Unconditional support has girded a political coalition in the Knesset that learned it can burn Palestinian farmland in the West Bank, terrorize Palestinian families without consequence."
He stressed that Israel has transitioned from a "startup nation" to a "territorial pariah," losing support in Europe, among American youth, and within scientific and academic circles worldwide.
"You've lost Europe, your biggest economic partner and market," Emanuel said.
Eugene Kontorovich of Advancing American Freedom says these remarks serve primarily to align Emanuel with the antisemitic and progressive wing of the Democratic Party rather than to offer a serious analysis of Middle Eastern politics.
"This idea that Israel has had carte blanche from the United States is absurd," Kontorovich asserts.
Pointing to the Hamas terrorists that control Gaza, Kontorovich says the whole strategy of the group has been to hide behind civilians and then use their suffering and their death to deal with Israel.
"Rahm Emanuel is rewarding that strategy," he submits. "He is playing into that strategy, and all that does is increase the likelihood of more and more conflict."
As for the "pariah" remark, Kontorovich points out that the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange has enjoyed "record" levels of success.
"Investors are pouring into Israel at an unprecedented rate," he reports. "That's not an international pariah."
Emanuel also insisted that Israel is "less safe today, not more."
"The problem isn't the lack of military strength, but something more fundamental," he said. "Israel has failed to convert its military gains into strategic advantages."
Whether it's military efforts in Iran or Gaza, Emanuel criticized Israel for having no day-after plan.
"You had no strategy to make a partner of the Lebanese government against Hezbollah," he argued. "Sinwar, Nasrallah, Khamenei — all dead, just as many in Israel have long sought, and yet Israel has never been more strategically isolated."
Rather than a two-state solution, Emanuel envisions a 23-state solution that involves 21 Arab states, Israel, and the people referred to as Palestinians.
Meanwhile, he recommends ending U.S. taxpayer military subsidies, saying Israel "should be able to buy American arms under the same financial terms, the same restrictions, and the same requirements as every other trusted ally."
"In the United States, we have a saying: If all you have is a hammer, everything you look at is a nail," Emanuel referenced. "Israel will become a prisoner of its own tools. Your military is a hammer, such that to the Prime Minister Netanyahu, every security challenge is a nail."
Gary Bauer of American Values says Rahm Emanual has got some nerve.
"Where does he get off going into a sovereign nation and telling them ... 'we'll help you, but only if you do what we tell you to do,'" Bauer responds. "That's not an ally relationship. That's a puppet and puppeteer relationship."
He says Emanuel "didn't deal with the main problem" facing Israel today: "Radical Islamists throughout the Middle East and around the world that do not accept the right of the Jewish people to have one nation in the entire world."
Instead of lecturing Israel, Bauer thinks Emanuel should have demanded that the media and members of the Democratic Party end their antisemitism and stop nominating candidates who hate Israel and Jews to run for higher office.
Emanuel is rumored to be considering a run for president in 2028.
"I wish that some leading Democrats like him that are Jewish Americans... would get together and make a public statement and say, 'If the Democrat Party keeps going down this road, we can no longer be Democrats,'" said Bauer. "That's what he ought to be spending his time doing."
Netanyahu has historically rejected Emanuel's policy pressure, famously labeling him during the Obama administration as a "self-hating Jew" — a sentiment echoed by center right commentators who view his "tough love" as dangerous pressure during a multi-front conflict.
