By Moshe Phillips

“Obviously, he’ll influence the president to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn’t he? What is he, an Arab? He’s not going to be mopping floors at the White House.” — Dr. Benjamin Emanuel, 2008.

The above remark made by the father of former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel was made to a reporter for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz just days after Barack Obama was first elected president.

Benjamin Emanuel, a pediatrician, was born in Jerusalem in 1927, more than two decades before Israel’s independence in May 1948, and his remark caused headlines. The subsequent embarrassment for the embryonic administration was so severe that Rahm called the president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee to apologize in an act that generated additional headlines.

Now Rahm Emanuel’s own remarks about Israel are generating headlines.

On “Real Time with Bill Maher” on April 17, they included: “Israel’s a very wealthy nation … ,” “There should be no more taxpayer support for what they want to do, and they get the same deal that any one of our allies does,” and “The United States should never spill any blood for the State of Israel’s security.”

The outright wrongheadedness inherent in each of these statements needs to be exposed. Not just for Israel’s well-being but for America’s.

We live in a time when synagogues and Jewish-sponsored events are under violent attack—Australia to England to Michigan. Emanuel’s decision to make comments about Israel and money at this point in time is horrifically irresponsible. His remarks echo one of the most enduring antisemitic tropes from some of the darkest periods in recent Jewish history. It must be called out as both hateful and dangerous.

You’ll often hear that American aid to Israel is a “blank check.” It isn’t. U.S. military assistance to Jerusalem is governed by agreements and legal frameworks that require much of that funding to be spent on American-made defense systems. In practice, that means a significant share of the aid flows back into the U.S. economy—supporting domestic manufacturing, defense jobs and technological development.

You can debate the policy. But calling it a blank check is simply inaccurate. Yet the phrase persists because it fits a far too often preferred anti-Israel narrative. And it’s very hard to believe that Rahm Emanuel—a 66-year-old politician and diplomat—doesn’t know this. There is a huge difference in the strategic relationship that America has with Israel from any of its other allies. Israel offers the United States military support, intelligence and experience that are simply unparalleled.

The Iron Dome and David’s Sling—the key components of Israel’s multi-layered missile-defense system—are battle-proven in Israel. America has reaped the benefit of this. No U.S. ally in any corner of the world has contributed to Washington’s defense in such an undeniable way.

It’s very hard to believe that Emanuel does not know this, too.

Consider that in “Operation Eagle Claw,” the failed April 1980 U.S. military mission to rescue 52 American hostages held in Tehran, eight U.S. servicemen were killed.

The United States invaded Grenada in 1983 (interestingly, named “Operation Urgent Fury”) in large part, as then-President Ronald Reagan stated at the time, due to “concerns over the 600 U.S. medical students on the island.” Reagan didn’t want another hostage crisis in Grenada like President Jimmy Carter had in Iran. Nineteen American service members were killed and more than 100 wounded.

In the December 1989 invasion of Panama ordered by then-President George H. W. Bush, 23 servicemen were killed and 325 wounded.

Estimates suggest that between 5,000 and 6,000 American college students attend study-abroad and gap-year programs in Israel every year. More than that, the number of American citizens living in the Jewish state has low-end estimates of 200,000; the actual figure could be more than twice as many.

Emanuel must know that an enormous number of American citizens live in Israel—possibly more than the entire population of Wyoming.

Many say he may be a Democratic presidential candidate. If that is the case, even more so, he knows that Israel’s security matters to America and is worth every dollar, no matter what he told Bill Maher’s audience.

Moshe Phillips is national chairman of Americans For A Safe Israel (www.AFSI.org), a leading pro-Israel advocacy and education organization.

This article was first published on JNS. 

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