This speech by American politician Rahm Emanuel in Tel Aviv on July 9, 2026, was a major rebuttal against the misleading and self-serving platforms of AIPAC and the Republican Jewish Coalition, as well as the flawed leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
AIPAC, the late Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, and the RJC have provided hundreds of millions in contributions to MAGA Trump and other right-wing Republican groups to bolster the Netanyahu government.
Emanuel’s speech, as reported by Politico, is expected to point out that Israel has become a pariah nation under the Netanyahu regime by its refusal to consider a Palestinian state, its thuggish tactics by settlers against local Palestinians, and its expansionist plans into territory called by their biblical names, Judea and Samaria.
Emanuel will also say that Israel is financially strong enough so that it no longer needs extensive military aid. He also will criticize Benjamin Netanyahu as a divisive leader who has taken Israel in the wrong direction in its international diplomacy and domestic policies.
These messages resonate strongly in Democratic circles and among younger progressive and mainline Democrats. It is also a slap at AIPAC and the elitist Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), and its main supporters, Israeli-born Miriam Adelson and wealthy Jewish financiers and tech moguls.
AIPAC and the RJC have spent hundreds of millions pushing Trump’s political agenda, even when it meant they were contributing to white nationalist MAGA supporters and supporting hateful immigration and anti-civil libertarian policies.
AIPAC and the RJC have already seen their huge donations wasted as Trump’s policies domestically and internationally have failed to advance their expansionist Israel agenda. The war against Iran that was promoted by Netanyahu and inside the U.S. by major pro-Trump Jewish groups has failed to return any positive results.
Trump’s popularity and his failed domestic economic policies have also made the RJC’s and AIPAC’s huge contributions worthless unless the Republican-MAGA plan to steal the upcoming midterm elections succeeds.
AIPAC and the RJC should also take credit for Trump’s dismal popularity rating: 59% of the country disapproves of Trump, and 54% said attacking Iran was a mistake. Those are very bad betting results for political professionals.
But AIPAC and the RJC don’t want to acknowledge any change in their blind pro-Trump version of events. The RJC website boasts that “President Donald J. Trump has advanced American interests in the Middle East like no President before him” by attacking Iran with the assistance of the Israeli air force. But this major attack has yet to yield any results, even as it has cost Americans billions.
These same groups ignore that Trump has given the nation a new Jewish target, “the Epstein class,” to mean wealthy men who abuse women and children, but get away with it because they pervert the law.
The RJC and AIPAC should also take credit for the rise in antiSemitism. Both groups support Israel’s war policies, as well as their indirect support of white Christian nationalist groups who are in constant contact with MAGA Trump supporters.
Emanuel’s speech will highlight that AIPAC and the RJC have failed to advance the daily life of average Americans. It will also show that Jewish Americans oppose the Netanyahu regime, the obliteration of Gaza, and the expansion of the Greater Israel into Judea and Samaria, wherever those boundaries are.
Wealthy Jews in the RJC have not accomplished anything by pushing the lie that American Jews are better off under a Republican administration. That has never been true. American Jews have been Democrats since World War I and the administration of Woodrow Wilson.
That’s because the Republican Party in the 20th Century was openly anti-Semitic until the 1960s. The RJC knows this, but instead pushed lies that Democrats are communists, and that Trump is “good” for American Jews when his anti-civil rights and corrupt self-dealing are recognized by all Americans but tolerated and encouraged by the RJC and AIPAC.
The speech by Emanuel will have repercussions in the American Jewish community and will start a new discussion about the relations between the U.S. and Israel. It’s clear that Israel has diverged from its classic position as “a light unto all nations” under the Netanyahu regime. The U.S. has similarly become a corrupt, corporate-run regime that openly disregards laws and wants to rewrite the Constitution.
The hundreds of millions in donations from the RJC, Adelson, and AIPAC elected and bolstered Trump and ensured that the country became more corrupt. They should be held accountable.
