Pro-Netanyahu TV Host Calls Eisenkot a 'Monkey' in Remark Decried as Racist Slur

Right-wing television host Yinon Magal called opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot a "monkey" during Saturday night's broadcast of Channel 14's "Patriots" program, a remark that was quickly condemned as a racist jab at Eisenkot's Moroccan heritage, The Times of Israel reported.

In Hebrew slang, "monkey" can be used to mean a puppet controlled by unseen figures, and Magal defended his choice of words on those grounds, saying he meant only that Eisenkot was being used as a front for Israel's Ashkenazi elite, not making a racial slur. Critics were unconvinced, arguing the term carries clear racist connotations when aimed at a politician of Mizrahi descent, and Eisenkot's Yashar party drew a direct line to a notorious 1981 incident in which television personality Dudu Topaz used derogatory language about Sephardic voters at a Labor Party rally.

Eisenkot himself pushed the blame higher up the chain, suggesting Prime Minister Netanyahu bears responsibility for rhetoric from allies like Magal, who is widely seen as sympathetic to the prime minister.

The episode set off a chain reaction in Israeli politics that stretched into the following day, when Netanyahu publicly condemned Magal's remark as "highly inappropriate" while simultaneously accusing Eisenkot of staying silent about comparable insults aimed at Likud voters, a dispute that has become one of the uglier subplots of the final stretch before the October 27 election.