Pro-Netanyahu pundit calls Eisenkot a ‘monkey,’ appearing to slur his Sephardi heritage

Yashar party likens remark to infamous 1981 'chah’chahim' speech that slurred Likud voters; Yinon Magal says he used the term to mean a puppet controlled by others, not as racist jab

By ToI Staff Today, 2:40 am
Left: Right-wing media personality Yinon Magal attends a hearing at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem on May 9, 2025. Right: Gadi Eisenkot, leader of the Yashar party and a former IDF chief of staff, speaks during an election campaign rally in Nordiya, August 31, 2026. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90, Gili Yaari/Flash90)

Leading right-wing political commentator and TV host Yinon Magal, one of the most prominent public figures supporting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, called the premier’s chief rival Gadi Eisenkot a “monkey” live on air on Saturday evening, in what can be interpreted as a racist remark toward the Yashar party chief’s Moroccan heritage.

“He’s a monkey. He’s a monkey. You are getting a kick out of the fact that he is Mizrahi,’ Magal said, arguing with a panelist on the popular “Patriots” TV show he hosts on the staunchly pro-Netanyahu Channel 14.

“They put a monkey behind whom stand all the Ashkenazi elitists, who are managing him… telling him what to say,” Magal said.

“He’s a monkey, they put a Moroccan Mizrahi, but you [say]: ‘But we gave you a Moroccan prime minister, what more do you need?'” Magal added mockingly.

The Hebrew word for “monkey” also serves as an underworld term for a front man or fall guy — a person who agrees to be the public face for shadowy figures and typically takes the fall instead of them — and, metaphorically, a puppet who appears in public but is controlled behind the scenes by shadowy elites.

Reacting in a statement, Yashar compared Magal’s remark to an infamous remark by TV personality Dudu Topaz ahead of the 1981 election, in which he branded Likud voters “chah’chahim,” a derogatory term for Jews of Middle Eastern origin, known as Sephardi or Mizrahi Jews, at a Labor Party rally, drawing a fiery counter-speech from then-Likud party leader Menachem Begin.

“Forty-five years after Dudu Topaz called Mizrahim chah’chahim, a senior mouthpiece of Netanyahu, who makes money from spreading lies and poison, this evening calls a candidate for prime minister who will return Israel to the Israelis, the chief of staff who served the country for 45 years and gave it everything — a ‘monkey,'” Yashar said.

Eisenkot’s party charged that the comments revealed a longstanding “disdain” for the Mizrahi public.

“I have nothing to respond to this substandard remark. The problem isn’t Yinon Magal, but the person who stands behind Yinon Magal,” Eisenkot said in response at a campaign event, in a reference to Netanyahu.

“But we will bring change to the country, and the phenomenon of Magalism and Bardugoism we will remove from our lives and bring a better country,” he said, also referencing Jacob Bardugo, another pro-Netanyahu pundit on Channel 14 who is running on the Likud list.

Reacting in a video posted to his social media accounts, Magal dismissed the outrage as “fake” and merely meant for electoral purposes. He said he was using the word “monkey” to argue that Eisenkot is a puppet who has been put in the front but is doing the bidding of Israel’s Ashkenazi — or of European ancestry — elite.

read more: