You don’t have a Democratic Party problem. It’s A United States problem

Rahm Emanuel didn’t come to lecture Israel. He came to warn it.

Speaking in front of a packed auditorium at the Anu Museum on the campus of Tel Aviv University, Emanuel framed his criticism as coming from someone with deep personal and political ties to Israel, stating that genuine friendship requires honesty, especially when an ally appears to be heading in the wrong direction. His words lived up to that promise.

This was a deliberate strategy: to inoculate himself against accusations that he was abandoning Israel while simultaneously challenging Israeli policy.

And for Israelis who heard only criticism, they missed the more important message.

Rahm Emanuel was not simply speaking to Israel.  He was giving voice to many American Jews living in the United States, struggling with their support for Israel in recent years.  Most importantly, he was speaking about the future of the alliance between the United States and the State of Israel.

For many of us, American Democrats living in Israel, especially in a post-October 7 world, this speech mattered enormously.

Emanuel is one of the Democratic Party’s most experienced political figures. He has served as a congressman, White House Chief of Staff to President Obama, Senior Advisor to President Clinton, mayor of Chicago, and U.S. ambassador to Japan. Whether or not he ultimately seeks the presidency in 2028, his words carry weight because they reflect the thinking of a significant segment of the moderate liberal Democratic camp, a space many American Jews still try to call “home.”

Israelis, therefore, should not ask whether they agree with every point he made. They should ask a much more important question:

Should Israel be concerned about the direction the alliance is headed?

That question should concern anyone who values the bipartisan relationship that has anchored the U.S.-Israel alliance for decades.

Throughout his remarks, Emanuel acknowledged Israel’s legitimate security concerns. He did not deny the horror of October 7. Nor did he suggest that Hamas poses anything less than a profound threat to Israel’s existence. He pointed to Iran as being the largest de-stabilizing factor in the region. Yet his central argument was that military success alone cannot substitute for political strategy and that Israel risks weakening one of its greatest strategic assets, that of its bipartisan support in the United States.

Many Israelis will instinctively reject that last argument. After all, October 7 fundamentally changed the country’s security calculus. Israelis have watched peace initiatives collapse, withdrawals produce more terrorism, and diplomatic optimism give way to rockets, tunnels, and massacres. Skepticism is not ideological; it is born of painful experience.

Those realities deserve to be understood in Washington.  Rahm Emanuel understands this.

One of the most important messages delivered last night, and repeated several times throughout the evening, was the acknowledgement that “Israel” as a concept must be separated from its current government.

His argument was that policies including settlement expansion, tolerance of settler violence, and the absence of a political vision for Gaza have left Israel increasingly isolated internationally and weakened its strategic position. He described Israel as becoming a “territorial pariah.”  He argued that abandoning the JCPOA weakened Israel’s position, a move that ultimately led both Israel and the United States to take military action against Iran.

But there is another reality that Israelis must also recognize.  Emanuel made that abundantly clear.

The United States of 2026 is not the same country it was twenty or fifty years ago. Younger voters, in both parties, even those belonging to demographics who once counted as traditional supporters of Israel, increasingly view Israel through a different moral and political lens. Whether they are MAGA supporters, or on the progressive left,  Israelis must acknowledge this reality. Politics is driven as much by perception as by reality. To back this argument, Emanuel cited a July 2026 poll conducted by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, where 40% of Americans believe the U.S. is “too supportive” of Israel, while 37% feel U.S. support is “about right.”  That, he says, strengthens the argument that Israel’s problem is not a “Democratic Party” problem, it’s not a “Republican Party” problem, it’s not even an Independent voter problem, but a universal “United States” problem.

He urged Israelis to understand that ignoring this shift will not make it disappear.

As Chair of American Democrats in Israel, I spend much of my time trying to bridge two communities that increasingly misunderstand one another. Israelis who struggle to comprehend why support within the Democratic Party is eroding. American Democrats often struggle to understand how profoundly October 7 reshaped Israeli society.  I have to be honest to say that it does not make my (volunteer) job easy.

This is why Emanuel’s speech deserves serious attention, and Israelis should embrace this message rather than dismiss it.  Emanuel is as serious as Lionel Messi is on the soccer field.  And he is not, by any stretch of the imagination, “a self-loathing Jew” as he was once described by Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, many years ago.  His words echo the thinking of almost all liberal Jews living in the United States who care deeply for Israel’s future and those Americans in my organization who made Aliya and call Israel our home.

Emanuel was not asking Israelis to abandon their security. He was warning that security also depends upon preserving America’s bipartisan commitment to Israel. Whether one agrees with his policy prescriptions or not, dismissing his warning as merely another partisan critique would be a mistake.

The speech also reinforces something I have long believed in and have been spending the last few years since October 7 cultivating the message.

Israel faces not only a policy challenge but also a narrative challenge.  Beyond the solid policy moves Emanuel suggests Israel makes, Israel also requires something completely different.   I would venture to say that it is a layer that is equally important to any future changes in Israeli policy.

Even if a new Israeli government is installed tomorrow, even if a ceasefire is declared between Israel and the Hizballah, even if by some stroke of luck Israel and the Palestinians renew negotiations, or even if by some miracle the Arab League takes responsibility (as Emanuel described it, a 23-State Solution) creating a totally different regional reality, rebuilding trust among many Americans would remain a long-term task. Governments negotiate treaties. Diplomats manage crises. But neither alone can rebuild emotional connection, shared identity, and mutual understanding.

That requires something different.

It requires that authentic Israeli stories that speak to people’s values rather than their politics penetrate the psyche of the American public, not the shouts of “From the River To The Sea.” Stories of Israeli doctors saving lives around the world, Arab and Jewish entrepreneurs building companies together, groundbreaking medical research, humanitarian innovation, environmental technology, cultural creativity, and the everyday diversity of Israeli society.

In other words, it requires nation branding rather than traditional advocacy.

For too long, Israel has relied almost exclusively on reactive diplomacy, responding to criticism after it appears. The challenge ahead is to rebuild relationships before the next crisis emerges.

Rahm Emanuel’s speech was not simply about today’s headlines. It was about tomorrow’s political landscape.

Israelis may disagree with many of his conclusions. As someone deeply invested in both Israel and America, I believe we would be making a profound mistake if we dismissed the warning altogether.

The relationship between Israel and the United States is too important to be managed only in moments of crisis. It must be cultivated continuously, honestly, and with empathy for the concerns on both sides.

Rahm Emanuel did not come to Tel Aviv to end the debate. He came to remind us that the political ground beneath America has shifted. The challenge before Israel is not simply to respond to that reality.

It is to shape it.