Nasrallah is Testing Me: Netanyahu Begs Media Figures Not to Make Him Look Weak!

By Al-Ahed News

During the war with Hamas, and especially in its early days, members of Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Office claimed in many talks with various journalists that portraying Netanyahu as "weak" could lead to Hezbollah launching a front on the occupied Palestinian territories’ northern border.

However, security sources who talked denied such claim and insisted that there is no intelligence indicating it, according to Haaretz.

Since October 7, Netanyahu has spoken with a number of military reporters, as well as the chiefs of news stations 12 and 13 and the newspaper Yediot Ahronoth. Many other journalists, particularly those affiliated with an offensive stance against the prime minister, were contacted by the prime minister's office.

During these discussions, Netanyahu and his team claimed that Hezbollah is paying close attention to the ‘Israeli’ media and how the prime minister is portrayed. They believe that by portraying Netanyahu as "weak," Hezbollah will be driven to start its own front in the war.

On Sunday, Gidi Weitz wrote that in talks with major media figures, Netanyahu warned that this was not the time to undermine him, explaining that "Nasrallah is testing me."

According to a senior security officer who spoke to Haaretz, this evaluation never came up in the intelligence picture, wondering on what foundation Netanyahu is basing his statements.

"This is a strange claim," the source said. "Nasrallah does not decide whether to launch a war because an ‘Israeli’ journalist criticizes the prime minister. It looks like a low-level spin."

According to Amos Yadlin, the former head of the Zionist Military Intelligence Directorate, Nasrallah's considerations about starting a war are unrelated to how Netanyahu is portrayed in the media.

"The factors that drive him are his assessment of ‘Israel's’ military power and what the US will do. I have never heard Nasrallah refer to the question of who sits in the chair, whether it is Netanyahu or Olmert or Barak," Yadlin said.