Hollywood superagent Ari Emmanuel was booed and heckled by attendees of a charity dinner on Wednesday night after calling for a two-state solution in Israel and the removal of Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Speaking at the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s annual charity dinner, Mr. Emmanuel, who was being given an award, said that he could not stomach Mr. Netanyahu any longer. He said the premier had made Israel less safe with his pettiness and narcissism.
“It’s a painful and crucial moment for all of us who are Jews, for all of us who love Israel,” Mr. Emanuel said, according to Variety. He added that the region could be saved by “a political, two-state solution that delivers peace, security and dignity to all.”
“Israel is being led by a man who doesn’t want a peaceful solution. He only wants to secure his own power and political survival,” Mr. Emanuel continued. “He is an agent of chaos, hatred, division and destruction — and enough is enough.”
Mr. Emmanuel’s brother, Rahm Emmanual, currently serves as American ambassador to Japan and previously worked as President Obama’s first White House chief of staff.
At one point during his speech at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, a woman yelled “stop talking!” as he was ripping into Mr. Netanyahu, and other attendees stood up and left the room. The “lasting damage” Mr. Netanyahu is doing to both Jews and Israel, Mr. Emmanual argued, could still be stopped.
“For the good of Israel, he should go,” Mr.Emanuel said. “So should the extremists in his cabinet, who are inciting violence in the West Bank and have been undermining democracy in Israel.”
Mr. Emmanuel argued not only that Mr. Netanyahu himself was turning Israel into a pariah state, but that his movement was unsustainable. He argued that “justice” ought to be served to Israeli settlers at the West Bank.
“The world is rightly outraged by the deaths of innocent Palestinians in this war,” Mr. Emmanuel said to the crowd. “There is no contradiction in saying that Israel is justified in fighting to free the hostages and destroy Hamas [and] that we should mourn the deaths of Palestinian civilians and seek to minimize casualties, that we should bring to justice settlers who commit violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, and to call for new leadership in Israel that will eliminate Hamas but also find a political solution for the region.”
