When Rahm Emanuel took the stage at Tel Aviv University last week, his main audience sat thousands of miles away listening to his argument for what a pro-Israel Democrat looks like in 2026. While the curated crowd at Tel Aviv University, which sits firmly to the left of mainstream Israelis – pro-Netanyahu or otherwise – applauded, the answer from the former congressman, former White House chief of staff, Chicago mayor, and U.S. ambassador to Japan, who is widely believed to be eyeing a 2028 presidential run, does not align with what the overwhelming majority of Israelis believe.

Emanuel insists that if only Israel had a leader with different policies from Benjamin Netanyahu with regards to the Palestinians, Israel would reclaim support from the international community. However, Emanuel’s sentiment does not match what would actually change in Israel if Netanyahu loses this fall’s election and is not the reason why Netanyahu is unpopular domestically. Casting the Prime Minister or his government as the singular obstacle to a healthier U.S.-Israel relationship is, at best, a convenient oversimplification.

This is not unique to Emanuel. It has become the connective tissue between center-left Democrats trying to hold onto a semblance of a pro-Israel identity and progressives like Bernie Sanders, who have long argued that American aid should be conditioned on Israeli behavior. Both camps appear to be converging on a version of the same theory: that Israel’s conduct in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran, and its policies in the West Bank, are primarily a function of one man’s leadership, and that a different prime minister would have produced a meaningfully different set of policies.

Furthermore, given how the ascendant DSA wing of the Democratic Party is trying to move the intra-party conversation from criticizing Israeli policy to questioning Israel’s very right to exist as a Jewish State, this framing serves a useful political purpose for moderates by allowing them to criticize Israel’s war conduct without having to explain to an increasingly hostile base why they still ostensibly support the country. It is either a fig leaf for indifference to Israelis’ right to choose their own leader, or it is a genuine........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)