Rahm Emanuel called for an end to unconditional U.S. support for Israel while speaking at Tel Aviv University on Wednesday.
Emanuel is a former Chicago mayor and a former U.S. ambassador to Japan and is a potential Democratic presidential candidate, and he said the call was part of a larger political shift among Democrats.
Emanuel warned that Israel has become a "territorial pariah," and said, "You cannot fight indefinitely against a world that has stopped believing you have the right to fight."
He offered a slate of proposals to change U.S.-Israel ties, including ending U.S. subsidies to Israel's defense budget, sanctioning Israelis who attack Palestinian civilians and politicians who support that violence, and strengthening Israel's diplomatic ties with Arab states and economic ties with the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor.
Rather than a two-state approach, Emanuel proposed a 23-state solution involving 21 Arab states that would hold the Palestinians accountable for progress toward a sovereign nation while accepting the historic Jewish connection to the land.
His remarks were framed as part of a broader shift among centrist Democrats, three years after the war in Gaza began; about 58% of Democrats say the U.S. is "too supportive" of the Israelis, up from 45% in January 2024, and roughly half of Democrats say Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians during the war, a charge Israel denies. Jewish adults in the poll had a slightly more favorable view of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani than of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Emanuel acknowledged the toll of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, saying nearly 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 were taken hostage, and Gaza's Health Ministry said Israel's retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, including those killed since the ceasefire.
He arrived in Israel on Sunday and visited projects before the speech, including a partnership between hospitals in Tel Aviv and Nablus where Israeli and Palestinian doctors train together; he met researchers who published a report finding sexual violence was systematic against Israelis in the Oct. 7 attacks and their aftermath, visited Yad Vashem and met with President Isaac Herzog, and said he was avoiding meetings with political leaders before Israel's elections in the fall.
The speech, hosted by the university's Center for the Study of the United States, was well received by a liberal Tel Aviv University crowd that applauded even when Emanuel criticized Israeli policy, though Israeli media, focused on a NATO conference in Turkey and a possible flare-up with Iran, largely ignored his visit.
Netanyahu's office declined to comment. Emanuel recalled that Netanyahu called him a "self-hating Jew" in 2009 over criticisms of settlement expansion and that protesters were detained at his son's bar mitzvah in 2010, including Itamar Ben-Gvir, who now serves as Israel's public security minister and oversees the police, which Emanuel said reflects the country's political direction over the past 15 years.