Last Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to hold a full press conference, which included a statement on the state of the nation, as he perceives it, followed by questions from the various media outlets. He has not held a press conference since December 2024, which gave rise to the question why May 21 had been chosen to hold the event.
Several guesses emerged. One was that Netanyahu’s practice in recent weeks of preparing videos in which he is “interviewed” by his communications adviser, Topaz Luk, had proven to be ineffective.
These “interviews” purported to answer criticism from within his political camp – for example, on the renewal of the humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, which had been stopped at the beginning of March – and offered Netanyahu an opportunity to attack his opponents and critics. The news conference followed the same concept, but in a different format.
Others saw it as an opportunity for Netanyahu to react to the declaration by the High Court of Justice, and Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, that Netanyahu had conflict of interests when his cabinet fired Shin Bet head Ronen Bar, whose agency is investigating two of Netanyahu’s close aides, in what has become known as “Qatargate.”
Baharav-Miara added that, for the same reason, Netanyahu is prevented from appointing a new Shin Bet head. Netanyahu reacted by stating that it is the attorney general who has conflict of interests because she is closely related to persons connected to the prosecution in his trial, and is on friendly terms with Bar – both false claims – and that Qatargate is a pack of lies.
I do not know what Netanyahu’s supporters felt about the press conference. Media personality Yaakov Bardugo, one of Netanyahu’s closest advisers and confidants, commented that it was one of Netanyahu’s best appearances before the press. On the other hand, Netanyahu’s political opponents felt the exact opposite about the event – that it had been an annoying disaster.
Netanyahu's self-centered conference
It cannot be denied that Netanyahu was coherent and sharp during the conference. However, a lot of what he said was either inaccurate or incorrect. His presentation was completely self-centered and self-lauding, and the only other person who was given credit for anything was US President Donald Trump, with whom Netanyahu claimed to still have excellent relations.
Netanyahu kept taking full credit for various decisions adopted before and after October 7, 2023, even though many of them had been taken by the security forces. For example, building an underground obstruction along the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip in 2017, to prevent Hamas from crossing into Israel underground.
Netanyahu claimed last Wednesday that he had initiated the project. In fact, the project was initiated by the IDF and the Defense Ministry; Netanyahu had merely brought it to the government for approval.
He raised this so he could take credit for the fact that in October 2023, Hamas was unable to cross the border into Israel underground. However, the ease with which Hamas’s terrorist-fighters, and accompanying civilian looters, had crossed into Israel through the aboveground obstruction, and committed horrendous crimes against Israeli civilians, turns Netanyahu’s claims into a pathetic sham.
Netanyahu raised this issue because he tried to defend his rather ambivalent policy toward Qatar. Besides claiming that he had regularly criticized Qatar, and had warned against its motives, he pooh-poohed the accusation that by letting Qatar deliver vast sums of dollars in cash to Hamas, he had in fact helped the terrorist organization finance its October attack.
Netanyahu argued that Hamas used Toyota vans and Kalashnikov assault rifles, and that the terrorists were wearing flip-flops, as proof that the attack had not been costly to implement. In fact, they were dressed in military attire, their arsenal of arms was diverse and sophisticated, and some of them arrived on drones. In addition, they were backed by vast numbers of sophisticated rockets and missiles. The flip-flops were worn by the accompanying civilians.
True, they did not have F-35s and tanks. Israel did, and yet the disaster of October 7 was no justification for Netanyahu’s verbal arrogance.
Problematic claims
Another problematic claim made by Netanyahu was related to the conditions under which he would be willing to end the war in the Gaza Strip, after the total defeat of Hamas – “the implementation of the Trump Plan.”
He did not explain which plan he had in mind: the establishment of a Middle Eastern Riviera in the Gaza Strip, after two million Gazans will be transferred voluntarily to other countries? Or the “freedom zone” which Trump spoke about during his recent visit to the three Gulf states? Does Netanyahu really believe that either of these half-baked plans is feasible, or was he merely implying that he has no intention of ending the war in the foreseeable future?
The question-and-answer segment of the press conference was no less chaotic. The first question came from Moti Kastel, the political correspondent for Channel 14. While asking his question, Kastel hurled caustic criticism against the High Court, and referred to the law enforcement system as a “bunch of criminals who had lied and polluted the investigations against the prime minister obsessively.”
Kastel asked Netanyahu under what circumstances he would “refuse to abide by the High Court’s rulings.” Netanyahu pulled out a written document before replying, thus suggesting that the question had been planted by him.
Yaron Avraham, the political correspondent for Channel 12, asked when new elections would be held, implying that Netanyahu might choose to delay elections or avoid holding them altogether. Netanyahu refused to answer, asking Avraham in return whether he wants elections in wartime, adding that a majority supports his policies.
Indeed, the majority he received in the November 2022 elections undoubtedly supports his policies. But does a majority today support them – including the current fighting in the Gaza Strip and the avoidance of a new hostage deal, to save the remaining 20 live hostages?
These are but a few examples of the annoying content of the press conference, as perceived by Netanyahu’s critics and opponents. Besides, all the TV channels that Netanyahu refers to as the “panic channels” – except Channel 14 – stopped broadcasting the news conference half way through.
Enough is enough.
The writer has written journalistic and academic articles, as well as several books, on international relations, Zionism, Israeli politics, and parliamentarism. From 1994-2010, she worked in the Knesset library and Knesset Research and Information Center.