Israel's bad Rahm-ance

Say what you will about RAHM ISRAEL EMANUEL – lord knows he’s heard worse – but two things the man does not lack for are political astuteness and chutzpah. 

(For the uninitiated, Israel is Rahm’s actual middle name, and chutzpah basically means big brass balls – pardon my Yiddish.)

This week Rahm went to Tel Aviv to deliver the Israelis some of his signature tough-love, warning in a landmark address that the country’s global reputation has become that of a ‘territorial pariah.’ 

The speech included a number of substantive lines in the sand that were remarkable coming from the man who may well represent the right flank in the 2028 Democratic field. Here are a couple of choice excerpts:  

As Vox’s Zack Beauchamp wrote in a sharp analysis, Rahm’s speech demonstrated that “what used to be the far-left position among Democrats — that America should use its leverage to try and push Israel to change for the better — is [now] the center.”

Underscoring that point, my old boss Hillary Clinton lauded Emanuel’s speech. Having served as her foreign policy spox in 2016, I assure you that this is not just to the left of where we were a decade ago, but also where Bernie Sanders was. 

Just check out this debate clash. At the time, Bernie’s foregrounding of Palestinians’ rights was earth-shattering – and he deserves a ton of credit for moving the Overton Window – but it was notably couched in assurances that he was “100% pro-Israel,” and not accompanied by calls for major policy changes. 

And he had, just hours earlier, fired his Jewish Outreach Director over an old post in which she’d written, “Bibi Netanyahu is an arrogant, deceptive, cynical, manipulative asshole… Fuck you, Bibi.” These days, a Dem staffer would more likely get fired for publicly disagreeing with those sentiments. 

To be fair, telling political leaders to go fuck themselves was frowned upon back then. (I’ve always been ahead of my time.) But times have changed. Realities on the ground have changed. The center of gravity in our party has certainly changed.

And Rahm went a step further in a refrain he emphasized across his local media tour, telling the Israelis, “You don’t have a problem with the Democratic Party. You have an America problem.” Media… another thing for which Emanuel doesn’t lack.

There’s been plenty of exasperation and mockery amongst progressives and younger Dems at all that media of late – myself included, re: his apparent residency as a WSJ columnist. The criticism basically goes like this: Surely, the 66-year-old human embodiment of the Democratic Establishment is not a serious presidential contender in a party fiending for populism and generational change! 

And yet…

More than almost any other 2028er, the pugilistic Chicagoan is constantly doing creative, newsworthy things; how nobody beat the boomer to proposing age limits for federal officeholders confounds me. And I’m not even gonna try to enumerate the dozen other interesting policies Rahm’s already rolled out; suffice it to say, it dwarfs the rest of the field’s collective Affirmative Idea Portfolio.

I still think Emanuel is a long shot who probably can’t overcome his fundamental incompatibilities with the political moment. But I’ve grown to believe he’s way more likely to be a relevant player than many highly regarded contenders. If nothing else, he will continue shaping the terms of debate.