“Today, Rep. Emanuel called Mary Rose Oakar, president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, apologized on behalf of his family and offered to meet with representatives of the Arab-American community at an appropriate time in the future," said an Emanuel spokesman, Nick Papas.

The committee had written Emanuel demanding that he repudiate the remark, which could be read either as a slur against Arabs (it was followed by "He’s not going to be mopping floors at the White House") or simply as a statement of the son's loyalty to Israel, where his father lives.

Obama's incoming chief-of-staff is the son of Dr. Benjamin Emanuel, a Jerusalem-born pediatrician who was a member of the Irgun (Etzel or IZL), a militant Zionist group that operated in Palestine between 1931 and 1948

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