During a discussion today (Oct. 21) on Channel 12 News about the exposure of an Iranian spy network in Israel, political commentator Amit Segal delivered a monologue in which he incited against Israeli Arabs and immigrants from the former Soviet Union, and "forgot" that an Israeli Prime Minister was assassinated by a right-wing assassin.

After criticism began mounting on social media regarding Segal's ignoring of Rabin's assassination, Segal responded claiming his words were taken out of context and that only a ten-second clip out of about a minute was published online, and insulted his critics: "an epic-scale idiots"

"You'd have to be an epic-scale idiot, or alternatively hate-filled, to take a 10-second clip about an espionage case in the Krayot and conclude from it that I forgot Rabin was murdered by Yigal Amir", tweeted Segal, or his social media manager Hani Weizer, "The context that was clear to any TV viewer with more than one brain lobe is that unlike multi-ethnic Iran with its various publics, here due to social cohesion no one would assassinate a leader for enemy money".

However, the full clip is even less flattering to Segal. Those who have seen the complete remarks, presented here in the video, can observe that Segal not only ignores the fact that an Israeli Prime Minister was already assassinated by an Israeli citizen, a Jewish kippa-wearing man, but also incites against Israeli Arabs, treating them as potential assassins, and defames immigrants from the former Soviet Union. In reality, among those recently caught suspected of spying for Iran are both Jews and veteran Israelis.

In fact, during Segal's own remarks, Channel 12 was showing an image of Moti Maman, an Israeli Jew suspected of spying for Iran. In the past, there have been spies for enemy states who were neither Israeli Arabs nor immigrants from the former Soviet Union, but Israeli Jews who acted out of ideology or for payment. Nachum Manbar was convicted of spying for Iran. Israel Bar, Shimon Levinson, Marcus Klingberg, and Ze'ev Avni were convicted of spying for the Soviet Union. Avri Elad was convicted of spying for Egypt. Udi Adiv and Dan Vered were convicted of spying for Syria.

It should be noted that in the Channel 12 news studio, during the discussion hosted by Amalia Duek, no one was found to correct the senior commentator's remarks in real-time.

Here is a transcript of the commentator's remarks:
"We need to say there's a change in the character and identity of the people. Until today we said who could be an Iranian spy, let's say it's Israeli Arabs. This is no longer the case in recent incidents.

"We're talking about, to emphasize, non-Jewish immigrants who came from the Commonwealth of Independent States through the Law of Return. That's the story. And this is something Israel will need to deal with.

"Why? Because essentially Israel's social cohesion until today was such that you don't really, even if someone truly hates the Prime Minister, regardless of who it is, they won't assassinate him, it's not like the Iranian opposition.

"But here, if people immigrate to the country, and their main reason for immigration is economic, they came from a poor place to a rich place, with an absorption package and absorption basket, and they're not Jewish, they have no connection to the country, from there the distance to receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars and shooting someone - the distance is still large, but it's not very large".