Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes appeared intended to project confidence and control to an American audience. Instead, much of the Israeli press saw something else entirely: a leader visibly worn down, politically disoriented, evasive on responsibility, and increasingly trapped by the accumulating consequences of the wars in Gaza and Iran and the fallout from October 7.
In Haaretz, Zionist columnist Yoana Gonen argued that even the setting of the interview carried symbolic weight. Netanyahu appeared not from “an official government office” but from the Jerusalem villa of billionaire Simon Falic. To Gonen, the image was stark: “an aging, exhausted leader hiding in the shelter of a wealthy acquaintance while delivering lectures about courage and responsibility.”
Her critique went beyond optics. Gonen portrayed the interview as evidence of a political era nearing its end, describing Netanyahu as “a prime minister obsessed with clinging to power while appearing physically bent beneath its weight.” She seized on his own remark about the collapse of regimes—referring to Iran—that “it happens gradually, then suddenly” and turned it back on him: “The same physical law applies to his seemingly eternal rule—slowly disintegrating until collapse comes all at once.”
“I think it accomplished a great deal, but it’s not over,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tells 60 Minutes about the war in Iran. Netanyahu says highly enriched uranium must be removed from Iran and believes “it can be done physically.” pic.twitter.com/N5XbvzpYa0
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) May 10, 2026
Questions Over Health and Fitness
Veteran Haaretz political analyst Yossi Verter wrote that the interview was “entirely meaningless in substance,” yet deeply revealing in appearance. What mattered, he argued, was not what Netanyahu said, but how he looked.
“Netanyahu has never appeared like this before,” Verter wrote. “His shoulders slumped, his posture bent, his face noticeably thinner.”
That impression was echoed by Israeli Army Radio correspondent Yanir Cozin, who acknowledged the sensitivity of discussing a sitting prime minister’s condition but insisted it was unavoidable “because this man holds the most important position for our future and security.”
“I’ve covered Netanyahu for nearly a decade,” Cozin wrote, “met him dozens of times and seen him in person countless times, and I do not remember him ever appearing this way.” He described the prime minister as “extremely tired, hunched over, shoulders drooping, without a tie, sitting in an unusual posture.”
A Leader Losing His Political Compass.
In Maariv, veteran Israeli-American affairs analyst Shlomo Shamir argued that the CBS interview revealed “a leader detached from reality.” Netanyahu, he wrote, appeared “like a tired old man” who offered nothing new despite having a prime-time opportunity to address both Israeli and American audiences.
Shamir focused particularly on Netanyahu’s silence regarding US President Donald Trump’s diplomatic overtures toward Iran, Russia, and China—countries Shamir described as forming “an axis fundamentally hostile to Israel.” According to the columnist, Netanyahu “did not utter a single word” about those developments.
The contrast, Shamir noted, was striking. Netanyahu openly confronted former US President Barack Obama in Washington in 2016 over the Iran nuclear deal yet now remains silent toward Trump. For Shamir, the issue is larger than a weak interview: it reflects a leader whose political instincts have become dangerously distorted. Netanyahu, he argued, once shattered the tradition of bipartisan support for Israel in Congress and now treats Trump “as if he were a god.”
Meanwhile, Yedioth Ahronoth diplomatic correspondent Itamar Eichner highlighted what he described as a fundamental contradiction in Netanyahu’s narrative on Iran.
Following the June 2025 operation “Rising Lion,” Netanyahu declared: “I promised to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities by any means necessary, and that promise was fulfilled.” Yet in the 2026 interview, he said, “It is not over yet. Nuclear materials still have to be removed from Iran, and nuclear sites still need to be neutralized.”
Evading Responsibility for October 7
The events of October 7 remained the interview’s central void. Vetter noted that Netanyahu “evaded any personal responsibility.” When asked how he remained in office while senior military and security officials had resigned after accepting responsibility, Netanyahu replied, “They said they bear responsibility, but what does that mean? What is responsibility?”
For critics, the answer captured the essence of the crisis: a prime minister determined to remain above accountability while the consequences of failure continue to burden the state, the military, and Israeli society. While security officials stepped down or acknowledged failure, Netanyahu reduced responsibility to an abstract linguistic debate rather than a political or moral obligation.
Across Haaretz, Maariv, and Yedioth Ahronoth—alongside Cozin’s remarks on Army Radio—the interview has come to be viewed not as a media appearance but as a symptom of a broader unraveling.
For Gonen, it signals a political system slowly breaking apart. For Verter and Cozin, it raises questions about Netanyahu’s physical condition and fitness for office. Shamir sees it as a reflection of a “prime minister” who has lost his strategic compass in the face of shifting American politics. For Eichner, it exposes a victory narrative repeatedly reshaped by the realities of continuing war.
What ultimately emerged from the CBS interview was not an image of strength but of a leader worn down by years of war, constrained by mounting contradictions, and unwilling to fully confront accountability—while a deeper question grows harder to ignore: whether the crisis is limited to Netanyahu himself or reflects the gradual unraveling of the political system built around his rule.
Source: News Agencies (Translated and edited by Al-Manar)