News Anchor Recounts Telling Netanyahu He's the 'Most Spoiled' PM
Channel 13 news anchor Udi Segal revealed details of a past conversation with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during which he directly criticized the premier. Speaking on the Knesset Channel podcast "HaMitbakhon HaPolitiki," Segal recounted telling Netanyahu multiple times that he was the "most spoiled" prime minister he knew, with the least critical media coverage directed at him and his policies.
Segal described Netanyahu as a "whiner," stating, "I would tell him, 'You're just whining.' I told him, 'I know your method, you start every conversation with me like this so I feel I need to please you and then I'll do what you want.' I told him, 'Let's skip this stage.' This happened time and again, it didn't help," Segal said.
Fellow journalist Sefi Ovadia, also on the podcast, proposed a controversial theory about Netanyahu's behavior over the years. Ovadia suggested that a more conciliatory approach from media figures like Segal a decade ago might have yielded a different Netanyahu, one without the perceived lack of vision in judicial and political matters. He posited that since 2015, Netanyahu may have felt he would never be accepted or that inertia led him towards figures like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir.
Segal disagreed with Ovadia's assessment, arguing that Netanyahu, relative to his actions, did not receive more criticism than his predecessors. He cited the intense scrutiny faced by Ehud Olmert and Ariel Sharon, noting that they "didn't whine" as much. Segal acknowledged that the media is a sensitive issue for Netanyahu and that the media landscape has become more electronic, immediate, yellow, and superficial, but asserted that Netanyahu's current media proponents would have worked for him in the past.
