“You’ve got to look at history in Israel,” Rahm Emanuel, the former Chicago mayor now serving as ambassador to Japan, told the Sun-Times. “It’s pretty clear how the public reacts . when it comes to protecting Israel.”
The intelligence failure that “blindsided” Israel and allowed Hamas to launch its surprise attack is “shocking” for a 75-year-old country with a “well-earned reputation for a security apparatus,” former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Monday.
Now U.S. ambassador to Japan, Emanuel hinted strongly public anger over an intelligence failure that allowed an “unnecessary” and “horrific loss of life on both sides” would ultimately cost the political leadership in Israel. However, he never mentioned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by name.
“You’ve got to look at history in Israel. It’s pretty clear how the public reacts — from the formation of the State of Israel going back to ’48 and forward — when it comes to protecting Israel. It’s a sine qua non [essential condition]. That’s where your measurement” of success or failure lies, Emanuel told the Sun-Times.
Emanuel’s father, an Israeli immigrant, served in a paramilitary Zionist militia. The family’s last name was changed to Emanuel, which means “God with us” in Hebrew. The name change honored his uncle Emanuel Auerbach, who was killed in 1933 in an altercation with Arabs in Jerusalem.
As a child, Emanuel spent summers in Israel. He served a volunteer stint during the first Gulf War as part of an Israeli military program for civilians.
The Sun-Times asked him how a country that prides itself on the intelligence gathering, covert operations and counter-terrorism capability of the Mossad, Israel’s national intelligence agency — along with its Iron Dome aerial defense system — could have been caught so off guard.
