Netanyahu on TIME Magazine: An interview full of contradictions - opinion

After reading the interview the August 4 interview that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave the national political correspondent of Time magazine, Eric Cortellessa, I was greatly disappointed.

The article was mostly a rather banal text written by Cortellessa, with a sprinkle of quotes from Netanyahu – clearly only a fraction of the complete interview. I found many minute but irritating factual errors in the article, such as that Netanyahu was born two years after the establishment of the State (actually one year).

Cortellessa also kept referring to “Kaplan Street” failing to distinguish between Kaplan Street in Jerusalem, where the Prime Minister’s Office is situated, and Kaplan Street in Tel Aviv, where the anti-government demonstrations have been taking place.

It was only later that I discovered that Time also publishes the full transcripts of the interviews it publishes. The full transcript of the interview with Netanyahu is 34 pages long, but most of the second half, which includes many hard questions put to him by Cortellessa – inter alia about his policy regarding Gaza and his performance as prime minister – were not mentioned in the magazine article.

Incidentally, Cortellessa was the Times of Israel correspondent in Washington, DC, from 2015-2020, but to the best of my knowledge never served as a correspondent in Israel. 

An interview Cortellessa did with former president Donald Trump in April 2024, published at the beginning of May, proves that he has iron nerves, which is vital when it comes to interviewing wisecrackers who perceive themselves as the cat’s whiskers and are inclined to dodge the facts when these are inconvenient. This applies to both Trump and Netanyahu.

I am not sure that choosing Cortellessa as his interviewer served Netanyahu well, though the fact that the former is not familiar with all the nitty-gritty of Israeli politics certainly protected Netanyahu from some difficult potential corollary questions, following his problematic answers from many of which his brilliant rhetoric seemed to be absent, as one can see below.

Most of the reports in the Israeli media about the interview pointed out that its main novelty was that it contained an apology by Netanyahu “to the Israeli people for October 7.” But who, besides Cortellessa, had asked Netanyahu for an apology?

What is an apology worth if he, as Prime Minister of Israel, refuses to take responsibility for what happened, especially since he views himself as totally innocent and is inclined to accuse the military establishment of what happened. 

Netanyahu’s reply to Cortellessa’s question was: “Apologize? Of course, of course. I am deeply sorry that something like this happened. And you always look back, and you say, could we have done things that would have prevented it? You’d have to be... How could you not?” 

Reading through the whole interview, I found many instances in which Netanyahu answered a question and then immediately contradicted himself. “Why have none of the Israelis who destroyed food supplies for Gazans been prosecuted?” he was asked. His answer: “They have. I don’t know. I don’t know that they were not prosecuted.”

Netanyahu was also asked about the riots and the breaking into the Sdeh Teiman military camp, which he had condemned in general terms. Cortellessa added the following question: “When you condemned this riot, you said we don’t storm detention centers, and you said we also don’t block roads, referring to the hostage protesters and the judicial reform protesters. Why would you equate those two?”

Netanyahu’s reply: “I also said that there was a case where protesters, where a leading protester, was taken into a military police station and then into a court, and thousands stormed the police station, and I believe the court as well. And actually [he] was released under that kind of pressure.” Cortellessa did not react to this outrageous statement. 

Who is the “leading protester” to whom Netanyahu was referring? What was he accused of? Who were the thousands who stormed a military police station (or was it just a police station)? And finally, what court did the thousands also possibly storm, which led the court to find the “leading protester” innocent? No such event ever took place.

Another question posed by Cortellessa related to the treatment by Israel of Palestinian prisoners: “Sir, there have been reports by the UN and other watchdogs that Israeli military forces have abused Palestinian prisoners, including through sleep deprivation, waterboarding, dog attacks, even sexual assault. 

What are you doing about this alleged abuse?” 

Netanyahu: “We have our own independent agencies, our own independent means to monitor any transgressions of this kind. Israel, I think, is famous for that it has what is called a ‘proper judicial system,’ both inside the military and outside the military. In fact... it’s about... it probably has the most independent legal system on the planet, so the argument that we’re not investigating this is ridiculous.” 

Would this still have been true if, before the outbreak of the war in Gaza, Justice Minister Yariv Levin had managed to ram through his “judicial reform”?

CORTELLESA ALSO raised a question about a possible deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

“The Saudis say they want a Palestinian state, or at least they want you to be moving toward one eventually. How is it possible to strike a Saudi normalization deal when you have [National Security Minister Itamar] Ben-Gvir and [Finance Minister Bezalel] Smotrich changing the conditions on the ground to rule out a Palestinian state, or even ‘a state minus,’ as you’ve called it?”

Netanyahu: “All Israeli governments have been based on coalitions... Previous governments [namely the Naftali Bennett-Yair Lapid coalition which preceded this government] even made a coalition with a party that is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood and rejects the very survival of Israel [Ra’am, the 

Arab party]. I didn’t hear any criticism about that. But one thing I can assure you, I run the show, I make the decisions. I formulate the policy.” Do you indeed?

The issue of Netanyahu’s refusal to end the war as part of an agreement to cut a deal to bring back the hostages also emerged. 

“President Biden told Time last spring that people have every reason to believe that you are prolonging the war for your own political self-preservation. How do you respond?”

“That’s simply not true,” Netanyahu replied. “I don’t need to. I’m not concerned with my political preservation. I’m concerned with my country’s preservation, and right now, I’m not prolonging [the war]. I would end it as quickly as possible. In fact, the more assistance [i.e., munitions] we have, the faster we will solve it. That’s what I said in Congress.”

When Cortellessa later returned to the issue of Netanyahu’s alleged preoccupation with remaining in power, once again Netanyahu denied: “I don’t care about remaining prime minister... We’re not talking about my future. We’re talking about the future of the country. I’ve dedicated my adult life... to assure the survival and security of the State of Israel and its prosperity... and as long as I feel I can contribute to that, I’ll do it. And as long as the people feel it... We don’t live in a monarchy. We live in a democracy.” Hear Hear.

As stated above, the transcript of the full interview is 34 pages. The quotes in this article are all from the original transcript, which was not edited by Time unless found to be incomprehensible.

The writer worked in the Knesset for many years as a researcher and has published extensively both journalistic and academic articles on current affairs and Israeli politics. Her most recent book, Israel’s Knesset Members – A Comparative Study of an Undefined Job, was published by Routledge.