NEW YORK, Nov 6: A number of Arab and Muslim groups are not happy about President-elect Barack Obama’s choice of his chief of staff announced a day after his election.

Mr Obama’s pick for the top White House job was his old friend from Chicago, Congressman Rahm Israel Emanuel, apparently to allay any further Israeli fears fuelled by his middle name Husain which prompted most members of Jewish community to question his job credentials.

Rahm Emanuel was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1959. His father Benjamin Emanuel helped smuggle weapons to the Irgun, the Zionist militia of former Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, in the 1940s. The Irgun carried out numerous terrorist attacks on Palestinian civilians, including the bombing of Jerusalem’s King David Hotel in 1946.

Mr Emanuel continued his father’s tradition of active support for Israel; during the 1991 Gulf War he volunteered to help maintain Israeli army vehicles near the Lebanon border when southern Lebanon was still occupied by Israeli forces.

As White House political director in the first Clinton administration, Mr Emanuel orchestrated the famous 1993 signing ceremony of the “Declaration of Principles” between Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. Mr Emanuel was elected to Congress representing a north Chicago district in 2002 and he was credited with a key role in delivering a Democratic majority in the 2006 mid-term elections.

He has been a prominent supporter of neoliberal economic policies on free trade and welfare reforms.

One of the most influential politicians and fund-raisers in his party, Mr Emanuel accompanied Mr Obama to a meeting of AIPAC’s executive board just after the Illinois senator had addressed the pro-Israel lobby’s conference last June.