Rahm Emanuel on criticizing Netanyahu, calling for new approach to U.S.-Israel ties

Geoff Bennett:

Former U.S. Ambassador Rahm Emanuel delivered a pointed message in Israel yesterday about the future of the U.S.-Israel relationship, at a moment when American public opinion and the Democratic Party itself are increasingly divided over U.S. support for Israel.

Emanuel, a former mayor of Chicago and President Obama's White House chief of staff, who is exploring a run for president in 2028, is also a longtime supporter of Israel.

Speaking at Tel Aviv university, he sharply criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government, called for a new approach to U.S. military assistance and renewed efforts toward Palestinian statehood.

Rahm Emanuel:

I came here from Chicago to tell you directly where things need to head if we are going to maintain the historic alliance between two democracies.

Without 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.

Geoff Bennett:

Rahm Emanuel joins us now from Berlin, Germany.

Welcome back to the "News Hour."

Rahm Emanuel:

Thanks, Geoff. Thanks very much.

Geoff Bennett:

In your speech to Israelis, you said the relationship between the U.S. and Israel needs a new direction. What more, in your view, needs to change?

Rahm Emanuel:

Well, as I lay out in the speech, you have to -- and we will stand by you -- work on peace and economic integration.

A country, any country, specifically like ours, you have four tools in your security toolbox, military power, political persuasion, economic statecraft, and cultural attraction. Three of those have been atrophied, and all you do is use your military as a hammer, and every security challenge is a nail.

And I offered not just a criticism of the prime minister, but also, specifically, let's work not towards two-state, a 23-state solution where all the Arab nations and the Arab League do full diplomatic relation with Israel, if you come to an agreement on sovereignty for the Palestinian people, a rightful cause, as well as your security, which is a rightful cause.

And that would break Israel out of its pariah status.

Geoff Bennett:

This 23-state solution, normalizing relations between Israel and the Arab League tied to Palestinian statehood, say more about why you think that would be more successful than the two-state diplomacy that has failed for decades.

Rahm Emanuel:

Well, the two-state solution doesn't have support on either side, and the politics don't work. The politics here leverages the Arab League nation's desire for stability, because they're now today more integrated to the economy of the world and they want stability, and the chaos that's happening right now with Iran, the regional war, is hurting their own economics.

Two, their plan back in 2013 was a 23-state solution. Game on. Let's go. But they have to play a role not from the sidelines, standing up a Palestinian Authority that three separate times in its history has rejected sovereignty and then responded with violence and killing civilians in Israel. That's totally unacceptable.

So if they become the kind of mentor that stands up an authority that can give the self-determination and the sovereignty to the Palestinian people that is right, Israel would also get a negotiated security. That would be a breakout not only of the pariah status that Israel has today. It leverages their desire for security.

It has the Arab League as an insurer of a Palestinian sovereignty that doesn't turn this down for the fourth time in a row. And they have their own interests. So everybody has a political interest. And the one thing I can tell you, as both a former chief of staff and a former ambassador, when you align people's politics, you can get the policy to work.

If the politics works against it, very hard to do.

Geoff Bennett:

You said that Israel's conduct in Gaza has been reckless and careless with Palestinian life. What should the U.S. have done differently while that war was under way?

Rahm Emanuel:

There was no day-after plan. After you had established your deterrence, after you had established actually beating back the capacity of what Hamas had done, you have no-day after plan, except for what you're left with, occupation and isolation.

You're a small country of nine million. You cannot become a pariah. You can't. You have lost Europe. You have lost the United States, and in the last three years you picked up Somaliland. As I said in the speech, that is, my mother would say, such a deal.

And you can't sustain that. In 22 years, the state of Israel will be 100. We in the United States just passed 250 year milestone. You think the present status quo is going to sustain itself for another 22 years? Now, Israel has more Nobel Prize winners than any nation based on per capita.

Their envy of the world is their start-up nation and the technology. Do you want to be remembered for having worked on climate change, for feeding the world or knowing how to use an F-35 and conduct war? You have an opportunity to do both. Take your military successes and turn them to strategic advantages.

The Biden administration should have enforced, as the government and others wanted to quit the Netanyahu government, there was no day-after plan. And all you have is now both the occupation that is sapping resources and, worse, continues to isolate you, just like what you're doing in the West Bank. It is an unsustainable political path.

Europe is your number one market. We are your number political patron and supporter of the country, and you have lost both. That is an unsustainable political statement. So I wanted to be direct, I wanted to be honest, and I wanted to go there so they heard it and understood that this is at a tipping point.

America has been on your journey with you for 78 years since the founding and Harry S. Truman. But you have taken yourself under this prime minister straight into a wall and crashed the car. Now, you want to walk on the journey of peace, shoulder to shoulder with you. You're going to continue to do this, you have lost the United States.

Geoff Bennett:

As you well know, support for Israel has fallen sharply among Democrats. This is especially true among younger voters. How do you see this shift showing up politically in the midterms and beyond that in the 2028 election?

Rahm Emanuel:

The problem is not a Democratic Party problem. It's an American problem heightened by the demographics of under the age of 30.

When you have two-thirds of the country not supportive of Israel, that's not a Democratic-only problem. When you say it's a Democratic problem, you're diminishing and narrowing the appreciation of the depth of what has happened with a country that normally have two-thirds of the country, of Americans supporting them.

So I actually think, if I could twist it, it's a far more grave consequence. I think it's now starting to dawn on them this is actually bigger. You could dismiss it, oh, it's a Democratic Party problem. It isn't. I didn't need a war to know that this prime minister was wrong.

In 2009 in the White House as President Obama's chief of staff, I said it to his face, which is what endured the public comment that I was a self-loathing Jew. What I'm saying is, this is an alliance. We are your number one ally, and you have lost us.

Geoff Bennett:

It strikes me we should make clear as part of this conversation for folks listening that Israel, yes, suffered the deadliest attack in its history on October 7. It still faces existential threats from Hamas and Hezbollah and from Iran.

Many Israelis believe that the world has lost sight of that. How do you navigate criticism of Netanyahu and Israel's policies while still recognizing the extraordinary security threats that country faces?

Rahm Emanuel:

They have serious -- they're not wrong about the security challenges. But like every -- not every security challenge, like on the Syrian front, diplomacy is the right tool.

Do I believe there's serious challenges? My father fought in the war of independence. Our family is named after my uncle who died fighting for the state of Israel. I know the security challenges. And they're not phony. But sometimes, in that security challenge, it doesn't mean you know just your military power.

You use your political, economic, and other elements of your soft power. Hamas killed more than 1,200 people, raped more, took 250 people hostage. What they really wanted to destroy was the possibility that Israelis and Palestinians could ever live side by side.

And I think the way the prime minister executed this operation in Gaza actually ended up helping Hamas achieve its goal, rather than actually deter future actions and create a different alternative, which should have been the day-after plan that his own government officers that quit the government and his own military told him they lacked.

And now you have perpetual occupation with perpetual isolation. That's a failed plan for the future.

Geoff Bennett:

Former U.S. Ambassador, among many other titles, Rahm Emanuel speaking with us tonight from Germany, thanks again for your time.

Rahm Emanuel:

Thanks, Geoff.