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Fellow-Democrat Steny Hoyer said Wednesday that Emmanuel, who represents Obama's home-state of Illinois, is considering the offer. Emmanuel was a White House adviser in Bill Clinton's administration and is regarded as aggressively partisan by many Republicans. The Israeli press on Thursday welcomed the possible appointment, the Maariv newspaper declaring that Emanuel would be "our man in the White House". Other papers pointed out that he did a short period of military service in Israel in 1997 and that his father, Binyamin, was a member of an armed Zionist group under the British mandate in Palestine.