Hollywood superagent Ari Emanuel was booed by attendees Wednesday at a gala dinner in Beverly Hills for the Simon Wiesenthal Center when he called for the resignation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
There were also a few cheers– as well as a number of attendees who reportedly walked out of the ballroom.
Emanuel, who received a humanitarian award, is a familiar figure in political circles as well. One of his brothers, Rahm, is the former mayor of Chicago, and was the chief of staff of the White House during the first two years of President Barack Obama’s administration — a time when Democrats were also focused on undermining Netanyahu. His other brother, Ezekiel, is widely considered one of the architects of the controversial Obamacare policy.
Emanuel himself led efforts to boycott hip hop mogul Kanye West after the latter’s descent into antisemitism.
In his speech, Emanuel backed Israel’s fight against Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists, but claimed that Netanyahu had damaged Israel’s image and had to resign for the sake of that country’s success.
Deadline provided a transcript:
When I was growing up, any time there was a Jew in the news who had done something bad, my father would say, “He’s ruining the Jewish people’s reputation in the world!”
It is now time to recognize that Netanyahu is ruining our reputation and doing incredible and lasting damage both to Israel and to the Jewish people around the world.
…
It is up to the Israeli people to choose their own leaders. Israel is a democracy. But as Jews, we have a stake in this. We also have a responsibility to speak out. We are called to “repair the world,” Tikkun Olam. And as Elie Wiesel said, “Sometimes we must interfere.”
Emanuel said that he backed Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) call for Israel to oust Netanyahu in new elections — a call that was rejected by American Jewish leaders as a form of interfering in Israel’s democracy.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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