Chaim Levinson, a host on N12’s Ofira & Levinson program, along with Ofira Asayag, criticized Economy Minister Nir Barkat for calling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ‘supreme leader’ during the Friday edition of the program.
When asked whether he had become one of Netanyahu’s lackeys, Barkat responded by calling him “the supreme leader of the State of Israel,” who is involved in all sectors of the government.
אין מה לראות כאן, רק ניר ברקת קורא לנתניהו “המנהיג העליון”♀️♀️@chaimlevinson pic.twitter.com/F4pWWMXTDx
— Lila Odin (@LOdinaev) February 28, 2025
“Are you really being honest with the public? Have you not become a member of the a**lickers club?” Ofira asked. “Sorry for the language. But I think even your close friends expected better from you.”
“You know what, Ofira, I got there [to the hospital] just after he [Netanyahu] had got out of an operation. And I looked and said, ‘How is it possible that the supreme leader of the State of Israel, who is responsible for the IDF…”
Levinson interrupted to say, “There’s no ‘supreme leader’ here; this isn’t North Korea.”
“Of course,” Barkat said. “He is the person who decides most things. He leads the cabinet. He deals with the hostages. He deals with all the big issues. He deals with all the geopolitical issues. ‘
“Why should he have to go to trial at the High Court of Justice three days a week? Just dismiss the trial already! When he succeeds, we all succeed.”
More important things to do
Earlier in the program when asked whether he had watched the interview with freed hostage Eli Sharabi, Barkat said “I had more important things to do.”
During the interview with the Channel 12 program ‘Uvda,’ Sharabi described the horrors he face while being held by Hamas under Gaza.
He described how the statements made by Israeli leaders impacted Hamas’s treatment of them.
“You could tell what was happening in the news just by their behavior. That’s why responsibility lies with the leadership. Their public statements carry immense power. The terrorists listen to them all the time.”
“They would come to us and say, ‘Your government isn’t feeding our prisoners, so you won’t eat either. They beat our prisoners, so we will beat you. They don’t let them shower, so you won’t get a shower.’”
Issues surrounding the treatment of security prisoners permeated the term of former national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, with prisoners threatening to “revolt” against him within a month of him being handed the role, The Jerusalem Post reported in February 2023.
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