Netanyahu posted a video on Wednesday calling for a law to revoke the citizenship of “anyone who slanders IDF soldiers.”
His target was NAZA, a documentary built on interviews with 24 Israeli intelligence officers and soldiers, which took the Special Jury Prize at Venice last week. But let’s be honest, Netanyahu’s own record of slandering the IDF runs thirty years.
| When | What Netanyahu did |
|---|---|
| 1996 | Told the generals he inherited from Rabin and Peres that they needed to “change their diskette,” removed them from talks with the Palestinians, and ordered the chief of staff out of cabinet meetings once his briefing ended. (Foreign Policy) |
| May 2016 | Rebuked deputy chief of staff Yair Golan at the weekly cabinet meeting over his Holocaust Remembrance Day speech, calling the comparison “outrageous” and saying it cheapened the Holocaust. His own defense minister had defended Golan. (Reuters) |
| Jan 2017 | Announced support for a pardon for Elor Azaria within hours of a military court convicting him of manslaughter for shooting a wounded Palestinian. Chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot had said the day before that an 18-year-old who enlists is a soldier and not “everyone’s son.” (Times of Israel, Ynet) |
| Aug 2023 | Summoned the defense minister, the chief of staff and the air force chief to a dressing down by videoconference over their public comments on reservist no-shows, then shouted at Halevi and other generals at a readiness briefing days later. (Times of Israel, Al Jazeera) |
| Oct 2023 | Three weeks into the war, posted overnight that the heads of Military Intelligence and the Shin Bet had assured him Hamas was deterred, naming Aharon Haliva and Ronen Bar. Deleted the post the next morning and wrote “I was wrong.” (Haaretz) |
| Jan 2024 | Blocked chief of staff Herzi Halevi’s plan for an outside panel of retired generals, led by former chief Shaul Mofaz, to examine the army’s October 7 failures. Halevi settled for internal teams of colonels. (Jerusalem Post, Ynet) |
| June 2024 | Told ministers, after the army announced daily pauses on an aid route in Rafah, “We have a country with an army, not an army with a country.” Days later his office publicly corrected IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari for questioning the goal of destroying Hamas. (JNS, NBC) |
| Aug 2025 | Overrode chief of staff Eyal Zamir’s objections to the Gaza City offensive. His son called Zamir’s opposition an attempted military coup, and Netanyahu let the remark stand. Weeks later he confronted the military chiefs over leaks, waving articles about Zamir’s objections at them. (CNN, Times of Israel) |
| Sept 2026 | Told an interviewer that defense officials chose to leave him asleep in the hours before the October 7 attack, and that the invasion would have been stopped had they woken him. Blamed the security establishment’s “conception” that Hamas was deterred. (Times of Israel) |
Generals are IDF soldiers. Golan, Haliva, Halevi and Zamir hold or held IDF rank, and the prime minister attacked each of them by name, in public.
Under the law he proposed on Wednesday, Netanyahu loses his citizenship first.