After reading the interview that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave to Time magazine’s national political correspondent Eric Cortellessa on August 4, I was very disappointed.
The article was mostly a fairly banal text by Cortellessa, with a few quotes from Netanyahu – obviously only a fraction of the whole interview. I found many tiny but annoying factual errors in the article, such as that Netanyahu was born two years after the founding of the state (actually one year).
Cortellessa also repeatedly referred to “Kaplan Street,” making no distinction between Kaplan Street in Jerusalem, where the Prime Minister’s office is located, and Kaplan Street in Tel Aviv, where the anti-government demonstrations took place.
Only later did I learn 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 difficult questions Cortellessa asked him — including about his policy on Gaza and his performance as prime minister — was not mentioned in the magazine article.
By the way, Cortellessa was the Times of Israel’s Washington, DC correspondent from 2015 to 2020, but to my knowledge she never worked as a correspondent in Israel.
An interview Cortellessa conducted with former President Donald Trump in April 2024 and published in early May proves that he has nerves of steel, which is essential when interviewing jokers who consider themselves the only people who tend to avoid the facts when they are inconvenient. This is true of both Trump and Netanyahu.
I’m not sure it served Netanyahu well to choose Cortellessa as an interviewer. However, the fact that Cortellessa is not familiar with all the ins and outs of Israeli politics certainly saved Netanyahu from some difficult potential follow-up questions that followed his problematic answers. As you can see below, many of these questions seemed to lack his brilliant rhetoric.
Most Israeli media reports on the interview pointed out that its greatest novelty was that it contained an apology from Netanyahu “to the Israeli people for October 7.” But who other than Cortellessa had asked Netanyahu for an apology?
After all, what use is an apology to him if, as Israeli Prime Minister, he does not want to take responsibility for the incidents, especially since he considers himself completely innocent and tends to blame the military for the incidents.
Netanyahu’s response 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 say: Could we have done something that would have prevented this? You should have done that… How could you not do that?”
Reading the entire interview, I came across numerous places where Netanyahu would answer a question and then immediately contradict himself. “Why were none of the Israelis who destroyed Gazans’ food supplies prosecuted?” he was asked. His answer: “They were. I don’t know. I don’t know if they weren’t prosecuted.”
Netanyahu was also asked about the riots and the break-in at the Sdeh Teiman military camp, which he had condemned in general terms. Cortellessa added the following question: “When you condemned these riots, you said we are not storming prison camps, and you also said we are not blocking roads, meaning the hostage-taking protesters and the protesters against the judicial reform. Why do you equate the two?”
Netanyahu’s response: “I also said that there was a case where protesters, a leading protester, was taken to a military police station and then to a court, and thousands stormed the police station and I think the court as well. And in fact, he was released under that pressure.” Cortellessa did not respond to this outrageous statement.
Who is the “leading protester” Netanyahu was referring to? 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 possibly storm, leading to the court finding the “leading protester” innocent? No such event ever took place.
Another question asked by Cortellessa concerned Israel’s treatment of Palestinian prisoners: “Sir, there are reports from the UN and other oversight bodies that Israeli military forces have mistreated Palestinian prisoners, including through sleep deprivation, waterboarding, dog attacks and even sexual assault.
What are you doing about this alleged abuse?”
Netanyahu: “We have our own independent authorities, our own independent means to monitor such violations. Israel is, I think, known for having a so-called ‘proper judicial system’ both inside and outside the military. In fact, it probably has the most independent judicial system on the planet, so the argument that we are not investigating this is ridiculous.”
Would this have been the case even if Justice Minister Yariv Levin had succeeded in pushing through his “judicial reform” before the outbreak of the Gaza war?
CORTELLESA ALSO asked a question about a possible agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
“The Saudis say they want a Palestinian state, or at least they want you to move toward such a state at some point. How is it possible to reach an agreement to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia when (National Security Minister Itamar) Ben-Gvir and (Finance Minister Bezalel) Smotrich are changing the conditions on the ground to exclude a Palestinian state or even a ‘state minus’, as you called it?”
Netanyahu: “All Israeli governments have been based on coalitions… Previous governments (namely the Naftali Bennett-Yair Lapid coalition that preceded this government) even formed a coalition with a party close to the Muslim Brotherhood and opposed to Israel’s survival (Ra’am, the
Arab Party). I have not heard any criticism of it. But I can assure you of one thing: I lead the proceedings, I make the decisions. I formulate the policy.” Do you really do that?
Netanyahu’s refusal to end the war as part of an agreement to release the hostages was also discussed.
“President Biden told Time magazine last spring that people have every reason to believe you are prolonging the war for political reasons. How do you respond to that?”
“That’s simply not true,” Netanyahu replied. “I don’t have to. I’m not worried about my political survival. I’m worried about the survival of my country, and right now I’m not prolonging (the war). I would end it as soon as possible. In fact, the more help (e.g. ammunition) we have, the faster we will solve the problem. I said that in Congress.”
When Cortellessa later returned to Netanyahu’s alleged concern about staying in power, he again denied it: “I don’t care if I remain prime minister… We are not talking about my future here. We are talking about the future of the country. I have dedicated my adult life to the survival and security of the State of Israel and its prosperity… and as long as I feel I can contribute to that, I will do so. And as long as people feel that… We do not live in a monarchy. We live in a democracy.” Hear, hear.
As mentioned above, the transcript of the entire interview is 34 pages long. The quotes in this article are all from the original transcript, which was not edited by Time unless it was deemed unintelligible.
The author worked for many years as a researcher in the Knesset and has published numerous 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.
