Rahm Emanuel Says Israel’s Path Is “Not Sustainable Politically”

0:01The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC and The New Yorker.

0:10Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Rahm Emanuel is by now a Democratic Party elder. As a fundraiser, he helped bring Bill Clinton to power. And in the Clinton White House, Emanuel was instrumental in the 1994 crime bill and NAFTA and much else. Some of those positions turned out to be deeply unpopular in the Democratic Party, but Barack Obama made Emmanuel his chief of staff. Emmanuel is a combative centrist in the party, someone who prizes winning over ideology, putting points on the board, he once called it. So it's remarkable in a way that Emmanuel just gave a blistering speech to an audience in Israel on the direction that Benjamin Netanyahu has taken that country in recent years.

0:56Emmanuel said that Israel's devastating war in Gaza and the settler violence in the West Bank, as well as Netanyahu's role in promoting the current war in Iran, is pushing Israel toward pariah status in many corners of the globe. Emmanuel argues that the U.S. government should no longer reflexively lend Israel military support, as it has for so many decades. And this is a man whose father was born in Jerusalem and fought in the 1948 War of Independence. Rahm Emanuel is making no bones about it. He's contemplating a run for the presidency, and we spoke this past week. Ram, I was just in Israel for a long reporting trip, and while I was there, you show up and you delivered some pretty bitter medicine to the Israelis.

1:44You gave a speech at Tel Aviv University. You basically said to Israelis, you don't have a problem with the Democratic Party. You have a problem with America. What was your message that you wanted to bring to Israelis, and why did you bring it? Why now?

2:02Rahm Emanuel:You're a small country and an important ally. So let's step back. Somebody spent time as ambassador to Japan. Japan's quite popular. It's a long poll of America's Indo-Pacific policy. NATO enjoys not only bipartisan support in the House and Senate, but bipartisan support in the United States is above, I think the last time I saw, 57. 58 % support. You're the one ally with unbelievable degradation. Its numbers are 32 % support, used to be 64%. And among kids 30 or younger, my own three children's generation, you're in the low 20s, sometimes high teens. In 22 years, the country that my father fought for its existence and my uncle, who the family's named after, will be 100.

2:50Rahm Emanuel:We just celebrated 250 years. It's not sustainable politically. You've decided that your military power isn't a tool, but is your national security tool, box. And to you, every security challenge is a nail. Israel has more Nobel science winners than any other country on a per capita basis. Yet those scientists can't go to international conferences and join on research papers. And many of them may leave if Netanyahu wins the election again. Yes, I met with the CEO of a top, top, top cybersecurity firm. He said if the government wins again, people will already leave. Many companies today that are Israeli-based, Israeli-founded, are setting up their companies outside the state of Israel.

3:36Did you find that Israelis understand that this is not an ideologically narrow feeling? This ranges from J.D. Vance to Zoran Mamdani, and now you, who I think can be described as a centrist Democrat. Yeah.

3:51Rahm Emanuel:Oh, I am. I laid out a 23-state solution that is actually a variation of the Arab League's proposal that would give Israel 21 countries with full diplomatic relations in the region to an economic strategy that also breaks out of its isolation and dependence on Europe, but makes it, both of them, heads and tails, makes Israel a member of the Middle East, a full participant in the Middle East, rather than standing apart from the Middle East. Part of your message, Ram, was that unconditional support from the U.S. has to stop. It has to be conditional. It has to change. Now, this is not a recent problem or a recent idea.

4:31You've worked for the Clinton administration and then later for the Obama administration. Was ARC support for Israel too unconditional in those days? So the short answer is yes, but not just limited to those two presidents.

4:46Rahm Emanuel:I did work with President Clinton on both the Oslo Accords, the Y Plantation. And while I wasn't an employee, I consulted with him often on Camp David with Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat. When I worked for President Obama, I was direct to the prime minister. I didn't need 18. This is 18 years ago. I didn't need a war to realize it was the problem. I said, what you're doing on housing in the West Bank not only undermines the possibility of a two-state solution, will lead to the isolation of Israel and will lead to perpetual conflict. And your reward for that was that he called you a self-hating Jew?

5:25Loathing. Ah, well, okay. That's better. Self-loathing publicly. I was also in the room, and I think these two go together. I was in the room when President Obama made a decision. I encouraged him to make this decision to fund the Iron Dome. I happen to think being against provocative housing on the West Bank that undermines a two-state solution and funding the Iron Dome that saves thousands of Israeli civilians' lives are complementary, not contradictory. I do get the politics in Israel today doesn't support a two-state, so you have to make it more valuable. A 23-state solution is a more valuable solution both for the Israelis, Palestinians, and the Arabs.

6:09The Arab League gets stability, so they can get the economic big bang that they're looking for. Israel gets security, and they get a problem, meaning the West Bank, removed. And the Palestinians get sovereignty and get the determination of their own. So you make the politics actually work together rather than against the policy. How did you feel about the way the Israelis prosecuted the war in Gaza. Somebody like David Grossman, who's hardly a self-loathing Israeli, used the word genocide, with great pain, used the word genocide. Other people like Ehud Olmer, former prime minister, has talked about war crimes.

6:48This is not just an opinion on the far, far left in Europe or something like that. How would you describe the prosecution of the war? I think Israel was reckless. You had no day after plan. Your own military begged for a day after plan And now what you have is occupation and isolation. And again, look, I say this out of care for a country that's not only our allies as an American.

7:10Rahm Emanuel:This was a country my father fought for its existence. My uncle lost his life trying to create. You can't have, and this is the first kind of canary in the coal mine by way of example, Israel 78 years old. The last two years, something happened that's never happened in the first 76. More people left than came. You think you're going to occupy the West Bank and Gaza, suppress the Palestinians' rights to self-determination, which I happen to think are legitimate. Not more legitimate than Israel's security. One example that gets lost in this. For 50 years, there's been an Assad in Syria, father and son.

7:52You now have a Syrian president who has said publicly to Israel, we share a common enemy in Iran. He has asked for and seeking a security agreement. I will give you my AT &T calling card. Call him. Have the United States, where he's very envied, desirous of the United States for economic and political and military relationship, have them facilitate the conversation. Ram, when I got back just the other day, I was on the phone doing a reporting call with Naftali Bennett, former prime minister, minister of many other departments, former ally of Netanyahu. And I said, so what did you think of Rahm Emanuel's speech?

8:34He said, well, yeah, I don't like it when people come here and angrily lecture us on our security. Even somebody who's now in the opposition was not pleased. I don't imagine you made that speech to please anyone. How much of it was for domestic consumption here in the United States? It is very likely that you're going to run for president. We'll talk about that in a bit. How much was this speech directed toward particularly Democratic Party voters for a, I don't know, a primary down the line?

9:05Rahm Emanuel:Maybe possibly a primary. David, since you wrote about my upfrontness to the prime minister in 2009, I wasn't thinking about a Democratic primary for president then. I was thinking about what was in the interest of both peace and Israel security. The through line from working with President Clinton on the Oslo Accords and the peace with Egypt all the way through to that speech at Tel Aviv University, I've been consistent. Has he changed? Has Netanyahu changed in your view? Well, there's no doubt. I mean, the Netanyahu once called for a two-state solution. Under pressure from the Obama administration at the Bar-Lana speech.

9:41As soon as he made that speech, he came off the stage and he looked at Martin Indig, an American diplomat, and said, OK, there, I've said it. Now can we move on? With respect, I have to tell you that I feel sometimes the Americans are deluded by this. There's a famous clip of Netanyahu in an apartment, and he says in the ear of one of the people, loud enough for the cameras, of course, to pick it up, don't worry about the Americans. I know how to handle them. In other words, he's had full confidence that he can manipulate American public opinion, not least American Jewish public opinion, by going over the heads of presidents.

10:15You remember all too well, he came to the United States. 2015. And he managed to get an invitation to Congress from the Republicans and got standing ovation after standing ovation after standing ovation.

10:27Rahm Emanuel:David, even then, and I was mayor, but I said it publicly as others did, you have now made Israel a partisan political issue. And he has mismanaged U.S.-Israel relationships. I'm not going to live with myself biting my tongue. Now, I have told the prime minister 18 years ago the truth. When I've been here, I have been honest about, to the Democratic Party, how the cultural cul-de-sac has led us into a dead end. How does your view differ on Israel from the critique from the left of the Democratic Party? How do you differ on your view of Israel from Zoran Mamdani? Well, this actually is a classic thing.

11:10Rahm Emanuel:The mayor wins his first election, but not the final. His team knew that I was coming and asked if he would like to have a meeting. So we met. The bulk of the conversation was, tell me about when you were mayor of Chicago, things like that. What's the combination to the law? It's a big job. so when he walks in I said to him I said uh so who's gonna hate this more AOC or my rabbi and he started laughing and I said and I've listened to my rabbi sermon I lived in there's I prefer my rabbi sermons okay last 20 minutes of an hour and a half we got to the middle east and I said because being mayor of New York like Chicago you do do foreign policy I said to him I I said, look, I'm going to be clear to you.

11:57Rahm Emanuel:The river to the sea will never happen because you're calling for the elimination of a Jewish democratic state and the Jewish people. Now, I don't believe in a greater Israel because it means there will be never, ever the self-determination of the Palestinian people. A greater Israel meaning the annexation of the West Bank and Gaza. Yes, and I said the difference between you and I is I want to acknowledge the Palestinian people's right to self-determination. You don't want to acknowledge the state of Israel or the Jewish people. But how did he reply to you? I haven't really thought about it in about a year.

12:34Rahm Emanuel:I think he was in the receptive mode. We didn't get into an argument because I think he probably made a decision. I ask because I want to be fair to him that he's not taking, yeah, that he didn't just take your description of his views. No, I mean, he didn't do that, but we didn't. Listen, when you ask me, how do I differentiate? There are elements in the Democratic Socialists and maybe even activists in the Democratic Party that do not believe in the state of Israel. I at least in my own view support something you're advocating which I happen to think is in Israel's interest which is the Palestinian people will finally have a homeland they have to spend money and part of my visit was what I call healthcare diplomacy we'll get to that maybe in this conversation of how to build that up I said you have to understand when you say what you say don't give me your crap about one nation And, well, everybody will live together.

13:35There's no kumbaya. I said, I hear what you say. There's no binational state. No.

13:41Rahm Emanuel:And I said, I at least understand the legitimacy of the Palestinian sovereignty and self-determination. You do not understand the Jewish people and what Israel means to them. Now, we didn't get into a big discussion because we weren't going to persuade each other. I made my point. He heard it. It wasn't something you wanted to argue about. Let me ask you this. There is an election going on. And Gadi Eisenkot, who is a 40-year army veteran general, maybe you know him, is suddenly leading the polls. And he has the possibility, when there's an election in October, that he may form a government. What difference would a Gadi Eisenkot-led Israel mean and one in which Netanyahu, after 19 years in office, is eclipsed?

14:26Do I think a new government would exercise the muscle of the political diplomatic front of Israel that's been atrophying? I do.

14:38Rahm Emanuel:Do I think they'll do it on day one? No. But I think there's opportunities besides just Palestinian front. There's an opportunity on the Syrian front, and there's opportunities beyond occupation isolation in Gaza. That's why the 23 state, when you're a pariah, is a valuable political. You get 21 countries that will have full diplomatic relationship with Israel. All members of the Arab League sign on to this proposal. So my attitude is, game on, it's your proposal. The difference between 1990s and now, you actually have to stand up a Palestinian authority that doesn't exist. The other piece of this today, while you and I are talking, David, there's a story about how the UAE is building new ports around the Strait of Hormuz.

15:26Rahm Emanuel:The India-Mideast-European trade corridor that I outlined is the IMEC. That is the economic lifeline for the most technologically sophisticated country of that corridor. and it will bypass the Strait of Hormuz, which is what Iran is trying to hold the world economy hostage. That, too, offers a compliment. You can't beat something with nothing. You don't like my ideas? Fine. I can find fault with my ideas. I can tell you what the weakens are. Tell me what yours are besides more occupation. I have to tell you, as you indicated, in all the debate I've been hearing in the run for prime minister and for Knesset, it's obviously a parliamentary system, the impermissible thing is to mention the Palestinian question the Arab Israel you are it is is not to be discussed even Yair Golan on the on the on the left um barely does except to say there there needs to be some resolution and you're not even allowed to to to say that we'll make an alliance with the Arab parties when Palestinian citizens of Israel are 20 percent of the population.

16:4222. Yeah. And they're 10 % of your Knesset. They are one third of the entire medical staff. Exactly. And hopefully we can talk about that of all of Israel. The reason we have also an interest in changing this, the United States, as you and I are talking today, is involved in one war right now with Iran. I don't want to be led into not only led or engage or make a decision to go to war. I want a different type of Middle East, and that means changing up the dynamics. And then build. I spoke the other day with Danny Satrinowicz, who was years and years in Israeli military intelligence, and he said this war has been a strategic disaster for Israel, for the United States, and for the entire Middle East.

17:31Who do you blame for it? Well, I blame the president. President Trump. Yes. Yes. The prime minister has shopped this idea of military action to George Bush, turned it down and did the Olympic Games. Barack Obama turned it down and did more than the Olympic Games. To Donald Trump 1.0, he turned it down. To Joe Biden, turned it down. So I blame the president for saying yes to something because you have agency and you are responsible for the men and women of this country. Three, the JCPOA by President Obama. You had Russia and China on the side of enforcement. Today, they're backing Iran and funding them to kill allies and American soldiers.

18:21Two, you had all the uranium moved out. Today, the uranium is in the country. Three, the uranium was at 3%. Today, it's at 90 % and in the country. Four, the Europe was part of, and the rest of the world was part of this agreement. Now the world is split on not only that agreement, but how to approach Iran. Five, you had international eyes and ears on the ground inspecting the nuclear facilities. They have been kicked out and haven't been in the region. Six, the Strait of Hormuz was open. Today you fought a war and all you're negotiating is the Strait of Hormuz. So it's a great triumph all around.

19:00Okay, so when I look down this list, and again, I was for JCPOA, but I wasn't like, this is nirvana. It was a 51-49, a 52-48, and I thought it was worth the equity. Now you've taken the military action, and these are the consequences. They now not only have trying to build a nuclear weapon, they have a nuclear option, and it's called the Strait of Hormuz. That is a disaster. And others in Israel's security know that this war was a total debacle, and the prime minister has been shopping this for 19 of his 20 years.

19:43I'm speaking with Rahm Emanuel, and we'll continue in just a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.

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23:48This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick, and I've been speaking today with Rahm Emanuel, an advisor to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, a former congressman and a former mayor of his native city of Chicago. Rahm Emanuel hasn't exactly declared that he's running for the presidency, but he's touring battleground states and releasing policy proposals at a pretty steady clip. He just gave a major speech in Israel criticizing that country's direction and saying that unconditional U.S. support for Israel is a mistake. Emmanuel has also been very forward in his characteristically blunt way in going after people in his own party for what he sees as a fixation on identity politics.