Why a Netanyahu-Trump Signal on Channel 12 Raised Eyebrows

An opinion piece about Channel 12’s “Meet the Press” argues that the program had little real news, and that its most notable moment was Amit Segal’s remark about Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. The writer says Segal and Ben Caspit joined the live broadcast about an hour after it began, and uses that to suggest the show is often slow, stale, and largely recorded in advance.

The central issue is Segal’s assertion that Trump’s support for any Israeli candidate could be a “death hug” because Trump’s public standing in Israel has “collapsed.” Segal then said that even after Trump’s more positive comments about Netanyahu over the weekend, he is not sure Trump’s backing would help. The article calls that statement shocking and then examines what it may reveal about Netanyahu’s current political messaging.

According to the piece, Netanyahu wants to keep talking up cooperation with Trump while also showing that he is not fully dependent on him. The writer says Netanyahu is preparing to insist on activity south of the “yellow line” in Lebanon, while hoping Trump will allow him that room. The article also says unnamed coalition figures are pressuring Netanyahu to dissolve the government now, before legislation harmful to Likud’s electoral prospects advances.

The writer argues that those unnamed figures are probably not the coalition leaders outside Likud, such as Bezalel Smotrich, Itamar Ben Gvir, Aryeh Deri or Yitzhak Goldknopf, but mainly Netanyahu himself. It says he may want to delay judicial and media legislation while avoiding ultra-Orthodox bills that hurt him politically, especially during wartime and amid deaths in Lebanon. The article concludes that readers should separate the headline from the underlying political message in order to understand the source of the leak.