Rahm Emanuel

Rahm Emmanuel was chosen as White House chief of staff by Barack Obama in November 2008. Jon Swaine , 'Rahm Emanuel: A profile of Barack Obama's enforcer', Telegraph.co.uk, 6 November 2008. (Accessed 3 April, 2009) 
Obama said, "I announce this appointment first because the Chief of Staff is central to the ability of a President and Administration to accomplish an agenda... and no one I know is better at getting things done than Rahm Emanuel." Christi Parsons and John McCormick, 'Rahm Emanuel accepts job as Obama's chief of staff', Chicago Tribune, 6 November, 2008. (Accessed 3 April, 2009)
Alexander Cockburn commented that "It’s certainly as sinister an appointment as, say, Carter’s installation of arch cold-warrior Zbigniew Brzezinski as his National Security Advisor at the dawn of his “change is here” administration in 1977." Alexander Cockburn, 'Hail to the Chief of Staff', CounterPunch, 7 November, 2008. (Accessed 3 April, 2009) 
 
Emmanuel is former member of the US Congress 'Current Vacancies: Office of the Fifth Congressional District of Illinois,
Formerly the Office of Representative Rahm Emanuel', Office of the Clerk website, accessed 3 April, 2009. and a domestic political adviser under the Clinton administration. 
Emmanuel held a dual Israeli-American citizenship until 1978. Kristin Szremski, 'Face Off in Chicago’s Fifth District: Pete Dagher vs. Rahm Emmanuel', WRMEA website, April, 2002. (Accessed 3 April, 2009) According to the Washington Report on Middle-East Affairs:
 
:Rahm Emmanuel, actually went to Israel for one month's service during the 1991 Gulf war in the Israel Defense Force "Overseas Volunteer Unit" to enable IDF personnel in essential civilian jobs to join their military units at the front... Rahm Emmanuel's uncle was killed while serving with Israeli forces in the 1948 war. Richard H. Curtiss, 'Netanyahu's "Overweening Pride" May Squander Breathtaking Gains by Israel and Its U.S. Supporters', WRMEA website, January/February, 1998. (Accessed 3 April, 2009)
According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Emanuel's father was a member of Menachem Begin's Irgun forces during the Nakba and named his son after "a Lehi combatant who was killed" -- i.e., a member of Yitzhak Shamir's terrorist Stern Gang, responsible for, in addition to other atrocities against Palestinians, the more famous bombing of the King David Hotel and assassination of the UN peace envoy Count Folke Bernadotte. John V. Whitbeck, 'Obama, Emanuel and Israel', Counterpunch, 7 November, 2008. (Accessed 3 April, 2009) 
Emanuel's brother Ari Emanuel is an Israeli-American Hollywood agent at the Endeavor Agency in Beverly Hills, California. He represents Michael Moore among others.
==Associations==
* Bill Clinton
* AIPAC
==Related Articles==
*John Walsh, Rahm's Losers, Counterpunch, November 11-12, 2006
*John Walsh, The Book of Rahm, Counterpunch, October 24, 2006
*John Walsh, How Rahm Emanuel Has Rigged a Pro-War Congress, Counterpunch, October 14-15, 2006
*Andrew Cockburn, "Meet Rahm Emmanuel, the Democrats' New Gatekeeper", Counterpunch, December 9, 2005
*Mark Donham, "The Secret Messages of Rahm Emmanuel", Counterpunch, January 25, 2005
*Joshua Green, "The Enforcer", Rolling Stone, Oct 20, 2005.
==Notes==
Category:Middle East Watch