The editor of "Makor Rishon", one of the right-wing figures and also "Father of" clarifies: "Fellow members on the side of Avromashi? A vicious plot" • "We are on the side of 'just not civil war'" • Interview

• "I do not dream of right-wing communication but of decent communication." Hagai Segal

  Photo: 

  Jonathan Saul

The hot battle in the galaxy of social networks has erupted between Amit Segal, one of our country's top journalists and probably the one who was attacked, and talkbackers who are looking for ideological ammunition and pulling out his father - Hagai Segal. "Even if you mention my father a thousand more times in an attempt to embarrass me, it will not testify to me, but only to the bad education you received from your father," replies the political commentator of the "News 12" edition in rare allegiance to the parents' legacy; In another tweet, he makes a political acceptance: "Those who slap me on the back of my family members are those who oppose the destruction of terrorist homes because of what their family members have sinned - the embracing killer Abu Mazen are also the reminiscent leaders of the Jewish underground." 

Hagai Segal is one of the fathers of the right-wing media revolution, literally, but in order for his name to bubble up in the Twitter cauldron, an exciting interview with the murderer Abrushmi in "Ulpan Shishi" is needed. "Raised Abrushmi out of a clearly provocative motive, this" win-win, this week a staff surgeon (63) in the living room of his home in Ofra. "If he repeated the previous versions and said 'I was menstruating, I was a young guy, I did not understand anything', as he said in interviews 20 years ago, they would say 'this is dangerous incitement', like now. And if he tells the masses to go to Balfour and take action - even more "Well, 'the right is once a killer, always a killer.'

But why your name inside?

"I indirectly imagine that it's because my colleague wondered, why even raise Abrushmi, what is relevant. From time to time go for the genre of past heroes, so why not the kind Udi and people who are less comfortable to remember? Because they are identified with the left? Of course? "They pulled out his painful and demagogic punching claim 'what about your father', as if I was relevant to this story." 

The "terrorist" is always pulled out for you.

"This is a nasty retrieval, of course, and I recently finished saying to fight it with legal tools as well. You will soon know details. This is an ancient case, more than 40 years ago. The court itself made it clear at the time that it does not compare us to standard terrorists. "He also settled for relatively light sentences for the severity of the accusations. After writing a comprehensive book on the affair and being interviewed countless times, I feel that from a certain point onwards, any modern mention of the affair is an annoyance that has no relevance today."

Years of opacity to deprivation

In his book "Dear Brothers" (Keter Publishing, 1987), Segal describes the moment of his release from prison: "Underground and its Appendices." Indeed, it is a matter of 300 pages of history, thought, personal deliberations, an invitation to a discussion, and a window of no fuss, which it is doubtful that the attackers on the staff in a variety of terrorist nicknames bothered to read.

"In the end it will happen." Naftali Bennett // Photo: Oren Ben Hakon

"I have said several times that I would not do it today," Segal explains, "but people do not really want to regret it; they want to keep this archeological issue on the agenda and shut up my mouth, and now Amit's mouth, too. Was not born then. As I know them, it will soon pass to the third generation as well. My eldest grandson is already 16, and if God forbid he is a well-known journalist, it will pass to him too. They will tell him: 'Your grandfather was a terrible criminal - now shut up '".

If Bat-Kol had come out to you 40 years ago in the streets of al-Bira and said: This iniquity will befall your sons and your descendants until the end of the ages - would you get out of the car in the middle?

"Yes, but it's post-mortem wisdom. It's clear to me that my assailants and fellow assailants are not really bothered by what happened to me in the depths of the last century, and in light of their love for Arafat and Abu Mazen they also have no problem with terrorism. "They find something else. For example, the very fact that I am a settler or maybe even the fact that I am bald and that my shirt always comes out of my pants."

Are you watching a colleague at "Studio Friday"?

"Not on Saturday, of course, but the passages that roll out later. It's a law of nature: if you're a right-wing man, you're doomed that in natural life you may be the majority in the country, but in studio life you're in the minority. It's hard but I'll say it anyway: 'Every day it costs a gallows.' 

"Is this Prime Minister a test case?" Mandelblit // Photo: Oren Ben Hakon

"On social media, hatred is rampant, including death wishes. I also do not like some journalists in this country, and I did not imagine and no one heard from me expressions that come close to what is running on the networks about a colleague. "That I'm not right-wing enough. But in Amit's case, it's not just the mosses of the wall. 

What did you learn from that?

"It proves to me how spoiled the left is. For many years I thought I might be suspicious, and any innocent statement turns into something paranoid for me. Now that I see that they do not carry the right-wing minority in the media, I understand that all these years In their exaggerated opinion, they find it difficult to digest opinions from the other side. Although, Amit is not the equivalent of Amnon Abramovich. He does not speak out against Bnei Gantz in the way that Amnon Abramovich speaks out against Benjamin Netanyahu or other right-wing leaders; He is much more restrained. But even this infuriates the spoiled left who got used to the microphone of his father and grandfather. "

On a Soviet scale

Over the years, Segal has devoted significant volume in his media work to critical coverage. Books on the subject and a festive supplement of a research nature, not to mention equivalent to a thesis, which was attached to the newspaper he edited - "The Department of Communication: Who and How Conquered the Microphones, Cameras and Newspapers" here.

"When you are a right-wing man you are doomed that in life you may be the majority in the country, but in studios you are in the minority." Amit Segal // Photo: Gideon Markowitz

In 1983, Emil Grinzwig was assassinated in a Peace Now demonstration. It took the GSS a year to reach Yona Abrushmi. On the way, he will interrogate 500 potential killers, the first of whom is a settler. The name of Kiryat Arba has been tarnished in the meantime, "Segal recalls." A year and a half before Rabin's assassination, there was an internal clan quarrel in Halhul that ended in assassination, meaning that Arabs murdered Arabs. But Avishai Raviv, the GSS 'Champagne' agent who lived in Kiryat Arba, went out to the media and took responsibility. In other words, the GSS was involved in a vicious plot that Kiryat Arba was in the newspapers for no reason. 

"It's a Soviet scale," he explains, "such stories exist so far. For example in demonstrations, La Familia were in the headlines and even I was tempted to think it was right, and after a few days were released from prison. The right lives in nightmare and fear, and the left deceives itself never to come "Some of it. A few months ago it was reported that a man from Kibbutz Merom Golan set fire to religious councils. What a violent act it is! If words can kill then Netanyahu must be careful, because the rhetoric against him in recent years is unparalleled violence and longs for his death." 

What is the state of media balance today?

"It's very frustrating. The media is not what it was when I started, not even what it was twenty years ago, but it's still very biased, represents a minority opinion and does not tolerate the exceptions in it, as Amit's case proves. - What's my son's to blame? Or Kalman Liebskind - his father was fine and his nails are stuck in it nonetheless. 

"Not restrained." Amnon Abramovitch // Photo: Gideon Markowitz

"The last year or two have once again proved that the bottom line is that the situation is disgraceful. Anti-democratic and anti-pluralistic. 

If on the most difficult front there is only one right-wing, the media revolution that the right has tried to bring about has failed.

"I edit 'Makor Rishon'. Once upon a time there was only 'Haaretz', a newspaper for ... how to define it carefully - people think. "Miriam and Sheldon Adelson are the shareholders of" Israel Hayom "and" Makor Rishon "; MK). I feel that there is a change. Even in the way settler and ultra-Orthodox writings cover, there is improvement. Tonight at Kol Yisrael once a week - I can not carry two former MKs presenting the evening's diary, so the rest of the day I prefer Bardugo in the GLC. No need to get carried away, the revolution did not fail, it is at the beginning. I dream of right-wing communication but of decent communication. "

No war, no folding    

The day after the sensational interview with Abrushmi, you did not go out in defense of your son, but published a picture of your grandmother, whose son Yedidya Segal, an Irgun activist, was murdered by members of the Haganah organization. 

"I saw the vicious plot as if Amit was on Abrushmi's side, so it was important for me to mention which side we were on, and that's the side of just not civil war. I was remorseful to publish the picture because my grandmother did not want that catastrophic case to be a cause for tension between Jews and Jews. I am from a family that suffered from the civil wars here, we paid a price.Ten years ago I wrote a book about the murder of my cousin ('Only not a civil war', Hoch Beit El, 2009), not to tease the left and say 'Look, you also have murders "On the contrary - to say that civil war is the worst."

"An endless blow." Evacuated during the disengagement // Miriam Tzachi

Worse than deporting Jews from home?

"Look, this could be final. To my amazement, I discovered, only a few years ago, that my grandfather, who had lost his youngest son - her late friend, during the Jewish wars, his cousin was killed in demonstrations on Shabbat in 1956. Pinchas Saglov, a Gur follower, was killed by those who landed a police officer on his head, near the old Shaare Zedek building in Jerusalem. So I understand something about civil wars. " 

Subdivision issue, settlements.

"It is true that in the beginning, and I say this as someone who was in Sebastia, it was impossible to imagine that it would cause such internal tension, but just because I am against civil wars does not mean that I fold all my positions. I try to fight them democratically without reaching this front."

Did the project called "Gush Emunim" succeed?

"Yes, very much. Although it was impossible to predict the difficulties and the very heavy blood price. I read Dan Halutz in Yedioth Ahronoth about the disengagement plan, who said it could not be repeated and the settlers were irreversible on the ground, so it was successful and fixed in consciousness. Who today longs for a Palestinian state? There was a stage when the left seemed to win, in Oslo. There were headlines about the "death of the vision of the Greater Land of Israel." It is true that in Gush Katif the settlement suffered a terrible blow, but after 15 years it was not a final blow. "A certain - the public understood what happens when you withdraw from a land area. It was a mini-model of a Palestinian state. It did not give the public a taste of more."

But the public does not buy masses of houses in Judea and Samaria, and sees the settlers as a foreign plant.

"I think the settlers are more immersed in the Israeli experience than the extreme left, and no less than the kibbutzniks of yesteryear. There is no mass influx, but the Israeli governments have done much to stop proceedings and even today the government is not releasing properly. If we could build in Ofra, for example, according to demand, there would not be 3,000 residents here today, there would be 10,000. "

Perhaps also because the settlers are perceived as elites of "First Israel"?

"What is the first and second Israel? I come from Acre, and to a large extent in my soul I am still there. Whoever portrays the settlement enterprise as something Ashkenazi and non-Oriental does not know the area." 

"Do not be a provocateur"

Who is to blame if we go to the polls now?

"First of all the voter. He already has three elections not deciding. You want to vote right, you want to vote left. Why do you vote for a party we do not understand, like Lieberman's party, which swears not to sit with the common and in the end has no problem with it? 

Staff // Photo: Jonathan Shaul

"Of course Gantz and Netanyahu also have their shares in this, and the prosecution is to blame. The insistence on prosecuting Netanyahu at any cost and in any situation instead of learning from the wisdom of the French is a mistake. If we go to the polls, it's a disaster - there is no budget, there is Corona and Iranians, but for them, the main thing is that we exhausted the law with the Prime Minister, in a case where many question marks hover around the main arguments of government and press relations. 

"We started with the gift bag, in the end it's trivial, we rolled into two cases that incriminate the relationship between a leader and journalists, which is a delicate, complex and problematic field, and the prosecutor's office is trying to make it a test case for an incumbent prime minister. His ... Prime Minister is the test case, and right now? "

And Netanyahu's mistakes?

"Netanyahu's mistake, after successfully handling the first part of the corona, was that he succumbed to the pressure to open everything up, which is why the outbreak here is so strong. He pays a heavy price for that. "

Which price?

"The last few months have been a nightmare for him. According to the schedule, another year and a bit he will evacuate Balfour, although of his own free will he will not evacuate."

Are you watching an election soon?

"I am an optimistic person, but in recent weeks less so. It seems that next year there will be elections unless a higher power intervenes again."

You supported the unity government.

"There was no choice. I thought Gantz, after resigning from the left wing, would be more comfortable as a coalition partner - and he was severely disappointed. And it is clear that he wants to continue in the dictatorship of the High Court. This makes the married life of the senior coalition partners impossible. In addition, blue and white made a significant contribution to the lack of sovereignty, they urged Americans to get off of it. I still hope we are pleasantly surprised, but here too I am much less optimistic. " 

Which heirs are being formed for Netanyahu?

"From the right it now appears that Bennett down the road may succeed and do good things." 

Is the Israeli voter able to let religious Zionists become prime minister?

"In the end it will happen, yes."

Will the media not do everything to torpedo such a move?

"Right now, this love story stems from the fact that he is considered Netanyahu's opponent and his potential replacement one day. When he stays alone, only he in front of the left, they will nail him."

And from the left?

"Yair Lapid is the leader of the left, although he prefers to be called a center, and he is by the way one of the most ardent readers of Makor Rishon. I do not want to hurt him but I am angry that he broke his promise and was willing to use Balad to form a government under him. Personally, I like him. "

You did not like the interview with Abrushmi. And if you are given the opportunity to interview Yigal Amir?

"I think any journalist, if given the opportunity to interview Amir - he will be interviewed. Unlike Abrushmi, he has never been interviewed, and there are some questions I would like to ask him without the sieve of the police, perhaps to refute the conspiracy theory I do not believe in. I want to hear from him That she is not right. " 

Will there be a civil war?

"No, I think not. Thank God there are not enough motivations. But I can not assure you that there will be no violence at all, left and right." 

What do you do to prevent it from growing to the right?

"Education. Fight for your positions, do not be a provocateur and do not hate." 

Who are you closer to? Haredi or secular? 

"It is difficult to answer the question. This is the tragedy of religious Zionism."

You are both a writer and an editor. Why would you want to make time?

"Not many know but my background is math. I would be happy to delve into astronomy and astrophysics. I am interested in outer space."

Are you a subscriber to Amit Segal's telegram?

"Certainly. But not Instagram, it's not for me anymore."