Netanyahu on Election Day: 'White House is trying to topple me'

On Israeli Election Day in March 2015, Prime Minister Netanyahu called a senior Israeli reporter and told him that the White House 'is trying to topple me.'

At 1:36 P.M. on March 17, 2015, a senior Israeli journalist fielded a phone call. “I’m transferring the prime minister,” the voice on the other end told him. “Hello, Mr. Netanyahu,” the reporter began.

“I want to tell you that what’s happening today is election stealing,” Benjamin Netanyahu thundered. “Nothing like this has ever happened in any democracy anywhere. Because you’re in the press, you didn’t report on this scandal here. I’m about to lose the election.”

The astonished reporter asked the prime minister what he was talking about and added, “You’re [going to be] the next prime minister.”

“I'm not,” Netanyahu answered. “The V15 movement, backed by the American administration, brought software programs here …. You know what I'm talking about. I don’t want to elaborate over the phone, okay? Super-software that locates voters.”

The reporter had no idea what software the prime minister was alluding to. He also sensed paranoia in Netanyahu’s next remarks about a global conspiracy to topple him that included Washington, espionage agencies, the V15 movement that sought to unseat him, opposition leader Isaac Herzog and the Israeli media.

“What do you suggest I do with this information?” the journalist asked. “The vote is today.”

“I want you to know that this is what happened,” Netanyahu said, ending the conversation by making an accusation in the plural. “You won’t touch it. You aren’t handling [the story.] That's why I'm going to lose the election.”

Netanyahu won the election. But he was right about V15. They did try to topple him. Fortunately, they failed.