On April 7th, The New York Times ran a story by Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman on the decision to go war with Iran, from their forthcoming book Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump. Anonymous sources recounted Trump aides feeling Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a "hard sell" on regime change in Iran. On CBS's 60 Minutes on Sunday, correspondent Major Garrett sat down with Netanyahu and raised the Times accusations and more.
After beginning the interview by addressing when and how the war with Iran might end, Garrett turned to Lebanon and Hezbollah.
GARRETT: Hours before we sat down with the Prime Minister, Israel targeted Iranian backed Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon. This is the second front in the war with Iran. Much more Israel's than America's.
Garrett left out the key point of why Israel has targeted Hezbollah inside of Lebanon. Two days after the start of the war, Hezbollah launched rockets into Israel, and they have been doing it ever since. The President of Lebanon has accused Hezbollah of betraying his country. But Garrett didn't see the need to inform his viewers of the whole story, although Netanyahu would add perspective.
NETANYAHU: They want Hezbollah to stay there and continue to torture Lebanon, continue to hold its people hostage.
GARRETT: Will you accept that?
NETANYAHU: No....We want to get rid of that danger to our communities, to our cities. They rocket our cities all the time. They rocket our communities. Would you want to live like that?
Great question which Garrett did not respond to. He soon set up Netanyahu with a question, before proceeding to the Times story.
GARRETT: Do you believe it is possible to topple the Iranian regime?
NETANYAHU: I think that you can't predict when that happens. Is it possible? Yes. Is it guaranteed? No.
GARRETT: The New York Times reports as follows, quote, "In the Situation Room on February 11th, Mr. Netanyahu made a hard sell, suggesting that Iran was ripe for regime change and expressing the belief that a joint U.S./Israeli mission could finally bring an end to the Islamic Republic. Is that correct?
NETANYAHU: No. That's actually incorrect....We both agreed that there was both uncertainty and risk involved, and I remember that I said, and he said, that there's danger in action, in taking action, but there's greater danger in not taking action.
Good-bye leftist media narrative? Nah, they'll just call Netanyahu a liar. Eventually, Garrett addressed the decreasing support for Israel in the U.S., and Bibi was prepared to place blame.
GARRETT: According to a recent Pew survey 60% of U.S. adults reported having an unfavorable view of Israel, up nearly 20 points in four years. One of the big reasons, the war in Gaza, where according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, more than 70,000 people have been killed. That includes civilians as well as Hamas terrorists. Netanyahu attributes the reputational harm to Israel almost entirely to social media, which he calls the eighth front of the war.
Netanyahu picked up Garrett's cell phone.
NETANYAHU: This is yours, right? You're not immune either, because you can penetrate this machine, you can penetrate this little instrument and you can say about Major Garrett anything you want and I can paint you as a monster. If I say it often enough, enough people will believe it.
GARRETT: Do you believe Israel is at risk of losing this war on that social media front?.... In America for younger Americans, Republican and Democrat, scrolling through images and they would use words like, barbaric, in Gaza and in Lebanon.
NETANYAHU: Israel has gone to unbelievable lengths to get innocent civilians out of harm's way. We text message millions of text messages to them, make millions of phone calls to them, pamphlets, leaflets, you name it. We have seen deterioration of support for Israel in the united States almost, I would say, correlates almost 100% with the geometric rise of social media,... We have several countries that basically manipulated social media, and they do it in a clever way. That's something that has hurt us badly.
Before his death Charlie Kirk sent Netanyahu a letter on how to win the misinformation war. Of course there is evidence out there making Israel's case, that Hamas uses human shields. John Spencer, Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at West Point, has pointed out that Israel has done more than any previous country to warn and protect civilians, but don't hold your breath to hear the liberal media ever report on that.
