About two weeks before the last election, on the evening of March 23, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived for an urgent interview with Channel 12 news following a long period when he had refused to talk with the Israeli media. Earlier in the same weekend, the Likud’s internal polls showed that the submarine affair and the Blue and White party’s campaigning on his alleged corruption managed to seep into Likud voters as well. Until that point this base was stable in its support for Netanyahu, but Blue and White’s campaign had successfully linked his alleged personal corruption and the issues of state security.
Netanyahu, who conducted the Likud’s campaign by himself, concluded that he must embark on quick media action in order to stop the electoral spillover. Of course, he could have chosen a right-wing media channel, or as he often does, broadcast on Facebook Live, but he wanted to go where he would be attacked with hard questions with no mercy and no dispensations — and he knew why.