Carlsbad, CA (special) -- Rahm Emanuel, who recently left his position as a White House senior adviser for investment banking and a Northwestern University teaching position, told major donors to the United Jewish Federation of San Diego County on Dec. 9 that no president since Harry S. Truman has been more beloved by Israelis than Bill Clinton. 

The former presidential aide said that Clinton has had an emotional attachment to Israel since traveling to Jerusalem with the minister of his Southern Baptist church in the early 1980s, and later developed a father-son relationship with slain Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. 

Speaking at the Four Seasons Resort Aviara in Carlsbad, CA.,  just days before Clinton was due on a trip to Israel and the Palestine Authority to seek implementation of the Wye River Accord (and days before the House Judiciary Committee voted to recommend Clinton’s impeachment on perjury charges ), Emanuel painted Clinton’s feelings about Israel in personal terms.  “When you go into the Oval Office...there is a little wall there and there are four photos from Mideast signings,” Emanuel said.  “They are not of NATO expansion, not of the Bosnia peace process, not of the Ireland peace process. ...

Rahm Emanuel

On that wall is the Sept. 13 signing; there is the principles signing; the signing at Aqaba, and there is the signing in the Rose Garden with Hussein and Rabin.  And those are the only pictures in there.” 

Further, Emanuel said, in the residence portion of the White House, “in the library of the President’s residence, the only non-family picture...is a picture of the President tying Rabin’s tie before one of the events at the White House.  It is the only non-family photo in the President’s personal library.  All the others are of him, Chelsea, Hillary, his mother, stepfather, Hillary’s family. 

The former special adviser told about 100 San Diegans who had donated $10,000 or more to the United Jewish Federation’s campaign that which photos hang where is an indication of the importance of the Mideast peace process to his presidency. 

Of the photos in the Oval Office, Emanuel said his favorite “is the one in Aqaba of the Jordan-Israel signing, and there is the President...with sun glasses; there is Rabin with his baseball cap on.  There is (Israel) President (Ezer) Weizman with a visor to protect him from the sun.  There is (Jordan’s King) Hussein with a khafiyeh.   It was like a Fellini movie... 

Concerning the emotional relationship between Clinton and Rabin, Emanuel noted that both had come to power after moving their parties (Democratic and Labor) from the left to the center, and both had succeeded more conservative leaders from the other party (George Bush, Yitzhak Shamir). 

Another factor was that President Clinton “did not have a father growing up” and Rabin, nearly to the end of his life, “was very estranged from his son,” Emanuel said. 

“A father-son relationship...developed between the Prime Minister and the President...Each served for the other a psychological need.