Netanyahu’s Familiar Script: Dragging America Deeper Into War While Avoiding Accountability

By: Said Arikat

May 11, 2026

News Analysis

Washington, D.C. — Benjamin Netanyahu’s appearance on 60 Minutes on May 10 was not a serious interview. It was a political infomercial disguised as journalism, built on fear, selective facts, and strategic manipulation. Netanyahu once again demonstrated why he remains one of the most skilled propagandists in modern politics: he speaks with confidence, repeats false claims relentlessly, avoids moral accountability, and relies on compliant interviewers who rarely challenge the foundations of his arguments.

The real scandal, however, was not Netanyahu’s performance. It was the collapse of journalistic scrutiny by Major Garrett, who failed at virtually every crucial moment to confront the Israeli prime minister with the questions defining the Middle East today.

Netanyahu’s objective throughout the interview was unmistakable. He wants the United States permanently tied to Israel’s confrontation with Iran. More specifically, he wants American military power to accomplish what Israel either cannot or will not do alone: “forcefully seize” or neutralize Iran’s enriched uranium wherever it may be. Beneath his carefully crafted warnings about the Iranian nuclear threat was a direct appeal for deeper American intervention, potentially involving American troops and special forces operating inside Iran itself.

This is precisely the trap many Americans fear after decades of catastrophic wars across the Middle East. President Donald Trump has repeatedly signaled discomfort with another endless regional conflict. Netanyahu, by contrast, continues trying to maneuver Washington toward direct military confrontation with Tehran, regardless of the long-term consequences for the United States, the region, or global stability itself.

Netanyahu framed the issue in familiar apocalyptic terms: Iran represents evil; Israel represents civilization. Therefore, every Israeli military escalation automatically becomes America’s moral responsibility. It is the same formula he used before the Iraq war, the same formula deployed during repeated assaults on Gaza, and the same formula now being used to justify broader regional escalation.

Perhaps the most dishonest aspect of Netanyahu’s interview, however, was his repeated implication that Arab governments secretly support Israel’s agenda against Iran and are eager for normalization under Israeli terms. This narrative has become central to Netanyahu’s political mythology. According to him, the Arab world quietly accepts Israeli domination and is merely waiting for the right diplomatic moment to formalize alliances against Tehran.

Reality tells a different story.

Saudi Arabia reportedly refused to allow the United States to use American bases on Saudi soil to enforce a blockade against Iranian ports or support naval operations through the Strait of Hormuz. That decision alone exposed the hollowness of Netanyahu’s claims. Gulf governments may distrust Iran, but they also understand that continued war with Tehran could ignite the entire region, devastate energy infrastructure, cripple shipping routes, and threaten their own survival.

Netanyahu deliberately obscures this reality because it undermines his broader narrative that Israel already enjoys regional legitimacy while Palestinians have become politically irrelevant. Yet even governments pursuing cautious diplomacy with Israel remain deeply aware that Israeli military escalation carries enormous risks for the entire Middle East.

Garrett failed completely to challenge these contradictions. He never pressed Netanyahu on why Arab governments remain unwilling to openly participate in his confrontation with Iran. He never asked why Israel expects Americans to fight wars that many regional actors themselves refuse to join directly.

Even worse was Garrett’s silence regarding Israel’s own nuclear arsenal. Netanyahu spent considerable time discussing Iranian uranium enrichment, yet Garrett never raised the obvious question recognized across much of the world: Israel itself possesses nuclear weapons. Israel also possesses advanced missile systems and its own nuclear infrastructure. Yet American television journalism continues to treat this reality as forbidden territory.

This double standard lies at the center of the regional crisis. Iran’s nuclear capabilities are presented as uniquely intolerable, while Israel’s undeclared arsenal remains politically untouchable. The message is unmistakable: one state may possess overwhelming strategic weapons without scrutiny, while another becomes the target of sanctions, isolation, sabotage, and war.

The interview’s moral emptiness became even more glaring when the Palestinian issue surfaced only marginally. Garrett never seriously confronted Netanyahu over the destruction of Gaza, the ongoing occupation of the West Bank, settlement expansion, or whether Palestinians possess any legitimate right to freedom and statehood. Instead, Netanyahu was allowed to recycle the increasingly absurd claim that Israel’s collapsing international image is merely the result of misinformation and propaganda.

The world is not reacting to misinformation. It is reacting to destroyed neighborhoods, starving civilians, and images of devastation broadcast daily across global media.

No amount of polished rhetoric can erase that reality.

The interview also reinforced growing criticism that CBS has undergone a profound editorial transformation following the growing influence of Larry Ellison and David Ellison, alongside the prominent role of (CBS News boss) Bari Weiss as a leading force in shaping the network’s news direction. Critics argue that the result has been a visibly more ideological and aggressively pro-Israel editorial culture, one in which critical scrutiny of Israeli state violence increasingly gives way to narrative management and political deference.

In the end, Netanyahu once again succeeded in turning American television into a platform for fear-driven militarism and political mythmaking. Garrett, meanwhile, failed in the most basic obligation of journalism: challenging power rather than amplifying it. The result was not an interview. It was a warning about how deeply sections of the American media establishment have surrendered their critical independence whenever Israeli power is involved.

The broader danger extends far beyond a single television appearance. Netanyahu’s political survival increasingly depends on permanent conflict, perpetual emergency, and the constant expansion of external threats. War delays accountability inside Israel, suppresses international pressure over the occupation, and keeps Washington emotionally and militarily invested in Israeli priorities. That is why every crisis eventually becomes existential in Netanyahu’s rhetoric. Lebanon, Gaza, Syria, Iran, and even global student protests are folded into a single narrative of civilizational struggle.

The objective is clear: to ensure that American policymakers, journalists, and voters view Israeli military escalation not as a political choice, but as an unavoidable historical necessity — forever.