Netanyahu voters would pick him 'if he raped their daughter' - TV anchor

Netanyahu’s son Yair Netanyahu tweeted that all right-wing voters should demand that Meet the Press Anchor Rina Matzliach be fired.

By GIL HOFFMAN
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu convenes weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem (photo credit: REUTERS)
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu convenes weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed outrage on Saturday night after a television anchor told a panel on her show that “Netanyahu supporters say they would still vote for him if he raped their daughter.”
Meet the Press anchor Rina Matzliach made the statement on her Channel 12 show on Saturday evening.
Netanyahu waited until after Shabbat ended to respond on social media that Matzliach “should be ashamed.”
“Your sick hatred for Likud voters and for me reached a new abyss,” Netanyahu tweeted. “First you called us blind herd and now you say things I cannot even repeat, and you still dare to call yourself a journalist.”
Netanyahu’s son Yair Netanyahu tweeted that all right-wing voters should demand that Matzliach be fired.
At the end of the show, Matzliach apologized, saying that her choice of words had been “not so successful.”
The head of Channel 12’s News Company Avi Weiss summoned Matzliach in for a hearing. His channel distanced itself from the statement.
But another source in Likud downplayed Matzliach’s statement, saying that her intention had been to compliment Netanyahu for making his voters so loyal to him. They compared it to a statement that US President Donald Trump said about himself at a rally in Iowa in January 2016 during his presidential campaign.
“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters,” Trump said.
Netanyahu has a history of verbal fights with journalists. Two weeks ago, the Likud called for Channel 13 journalist Raviv Drucker to be jailed for broadcasting leaks from Netanyahu’s criminal investigation.