Let's Get Historical Facts Straight

A New Republic blogger, Eli Lake, notes, in regard to Rahm Emanuel, that:-

The family name, Emanuel, is a tribute to Rahm's uncle, Emanuel Auerbach, who died in 1933 fighting the Arabs in Jerusalem (or: "during a skirmish with Arabs"). "Obviously [Rahm] will influence the president to be pro-Israel," his father told Ha'aretz last week. "Why wouldn't he be? What is he, an Arab? He's not going to clean the floors of the White House."

First of all, that quote came from Ma'ariv, the Jerusalem Post claims.

Secondly, I don't think he was "fighting Arabs" or in a "skirmish". In 1933, Arabs were killing Jews as part of an initiated short period of terror.

Here is a notation from an archival file at St. Antony's College on a former Palestina Policemen:

Jaffa Riots
i) Police dispositions for 27 October 1933.
ii) JAMF’s charts outlining the sequence of events leading up to the Jaffa riots;
description of the events; names of witnesses to each event; JAMF’s statement and
report on the disturbances of 27 October 1933; extract from La Falastine, 27 Dec.
1933 - a suggestion by Professor Jamal Husseini concerning the refusal to bring
JAMF to trial.
iii) Personal statements (in English and Arabic) by those who had opened fire
during the riots.
Box 2
2/1 i) Copy of Falastin 12 Nov. 1933 with photographs of the Jaffa riots.
ii) Album of photographs of the demonstrations which took place in Palestine in
1933, pub. Theodore Sarrouf, Press & Publication Office, Jaffa.

and this biographical note about Musa Azzam El-Husseini:

Partly as a result of his disappointment with the British pro-Zionist policy, and partly because of the pressure of the action-oriented Palestinian groups that emerged during the late 1920s, he led the October 1933 Palestinian demonstrations against Zionist immigration in Jerusalem.

and one more selection from an academic article:

The unrest took various forms. In August 1930, there was a minor Arab outbreak at Nablus, and the years 1930 and 1931 were marked by a series of small-scale attacks on Jews. The rank and file Arabs displayed animosity by resorting to agrarian crime, uprooting trees, wounding cattle, trespassing and grazing, as means of obstructing the sale of land to Jews. Arab scouts patrolled the coast in order to prevent illegal immigration, seemingly tolerated by lax British patrols. In October 1933, Arabs escalated the disturbances in the form of riots, shootings and strikes in response to a resolution of the Arab Executive condemning continued Jewish
immigration and land purchases in Palestine. The Arab Executive was upset by what it
regarded as disproportionate Jewish influence in London, and by aggressive statements about future Jewish immigration into Palestine emanating from the 1933 Zionist Congress in Prague (R.I.I.A. 1946, 85). The 1933 disturbances, though well below those of 1929, nevertheless represented a milestone in the conflict. For the first time, the Arabs directed their hostility against the British government, as well as against the Jews. Through 1934 and 1935, the British administration played down the disturbances.

I dwelled on this because the misinformation bandied about regarding the Auerbach family member killed (and even it was in 1936, the same situation existed) permits me to highlight the earlier period of Arab terror, killing and mayhem that was directed at civilian targets: Jews, their property and their investments.

An additional point is that Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifadah was upset at the selection of a "pro-Israel hardliner", saying

Emanuel's father as "a gun runner/

smuggler

for the Irgun, the Zionist, pre-Israel Zionist, militia that carried out numerous terrorist attacks on Palestinian civilians, including the bombing of the King David Hotel. Of course, Rahm Emanuel himself is not responsible for any of that, but his record is sometimes far to the right of President Bush when it comes to supporting Israel."

"Palestinian civilians" were indeed targets of Zionist militias, the Irgun, the Lehi and the Hagana and Palmach but only in repisal attacks, in response to Aran-initiated terror.

One last point, on the "Arab cleaning" remark, I wrote, leaving a comment at one blog site on the senior Emanuel's remark,

...As for his father's reamrk, indeed, it was quite insensible. Of course, having a relative murdered by Arabs in the 1930s, before the state of Israel was even created, simply because he was a Jew and perceived by Arabs to be a legitimate target for their own political violence and terror, may have influenced his inconsiderate words.

P.S.

Things can get weird:

Sherman Skolnick of Chicago called Rahm Emanuel the "Acting Deputy Chief for North America of the Mossad ­ Israeli Intelligence"...Skolnick went on to say that Emanuel's father Benjamin had been "part of the Israeli assassin team that murdered Sweden's Count [Folke] Bernadotte" in 1948.

FYI: Bernadotte was a Lehi operation, not Irgun, and I knew all four members of the team and none of them was Emanuel Sr.