A new speech shows how Israel lost the Democratic party

Rahm Emanuel and the death of the pro-Israel Democrat.

This week, Rahm Emanuel — a chief of staff in the Obama White House and widely rumored 2028 candidate — went to Tel Aviv to deliver a stern message to the Israeli public: If Israel wants to keep America as an ally, it needs to change.

“Without question, the alliance is at a crossroads. It cannot stand or survive as it has been,” he said. “To maintain the strength of our ties, we need significant changes and a new direction.”

The problem, per Emanuel, is that Israel under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has become “a modern-day Sparta” — a militarist, expansionist state that sees no alternative to crushing Palestinians under its foot. Such a country does not deserve the “unconditional support” Emanuel believes it has gotten from the US, which is the geopolitical equivalent of giving vodka to an alcoholic.

“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,” he wrote.

Instead, he said, the United States needs to push Israel to be a better version of itself. This means sanctioning Israeli political and business leaders who enable terrorism against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, ending US military aid to Israel, and launching a new framework for peace negotiations with the Palestinians built around support from other Arab countries.

No one thinks this speech will change American policy. Rahm Emanuel very much does not speak for President Donald Trump. Rather, the speech should be understood in the context of intra-Democratic politics.

While both Barack Obama and Joe Biden clashed with Netanyahu at various points, both attempted to keep those disagreements mostly private and their public steps to punish Israeli misbehavior relatively muted. Even as multiple administrations called for a Palestinian state and opposed new settlements in the West Bank, sanctioning Israeli leaders and cutting off military aid were completely off the table — the sort of thing that only a left figure like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) would even dare suggest.

Emanuel is not Sanders. In his memoir The World as It Is, Obama adviser Ben Rhodes recalls Emanuel repeatedly mocking his concerns for Palestinians in internal administration discussions — giving Rhodes the nickname “Hamas” and accusing the advisor of making “it impossible for my kid to have his fucking bar mitzvah in Israel.”

That a Jewish Democrat like Emanuel is now comfortable with once-marginalized rhetoric and policies is a marker that the old pro-Israel consensus is well and truly dead among Democrats. What’s coming in 2028 and beyond is going........

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