Initial U.S. statements confirmed the recovery of one pilot but did not immediately reference another crew member.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

Questions are emerging over whether Israeli correspondent Amit Segal is among several journalists who could potentially face legal action after reporting that a second American crew member was missing following the downing of an F-15 fighter jet over Iran, an issue that has drawn attention amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to jail the “leaker.”

The controversy centers on early disclosures about the incident.

Initial U.S. statements confirmed the recovery of one pilot but did not immediately reference another crew member.

Reports that a second airman was unaccounted for surfaced shortly afterward, increasing scrutiny over the release of operational details during the ongoing conflict.

Israel’s Channel 12 was credited by Military Times with being the first to report that a second American pilot was missing in a broadcast. T

The New York Post was unable to find a clip from the live broadcast, but Channel 12 reporters Amit Segal and Barak Ravid — who also works for Axios — were among the earliest to post the information to Telegram and X, respectively.

“An American fighter jet was shot down by Iranian fire. A search is underway to locate the two crew members, according to a source familiar with the details. Read my article at @axios,” Ravid wrote at 8:54 a.m. EST on Friday.

Segal later acknowledged in comments to the New York Post on Monday that he had reported the information early, though he said he was unsure whether he had been the first to do so. He added, “I will protect my sources.”

Trump said Monday he would demand that the journalist who first reported that an airman in Iran had been rescued reveal how they got that information and threatened to jail them if they refused.

Newsweek noted that it remains unclear how U.S. authorities could prosecute an Israeli citizen or compel an Israeli news outlet to reveal its sources.

The post Will Israeli correspondent Amit Segal face jail time over reporting second missing US crew member? appeared first on World Israel News.

In an exclusive interview with World Israel News, Friedman said that Trump’s disparaging remarks against Netanyahu were possibly taken out of context.   

By Debbie Reiss, World Israel News

Former U.S. ambassador to Israel David Friedman has rejected claims made by Barak Ravid in his book, “Trump’s Peace,” saying the veteran Israeli journalist “should have called me.”

Speaking to World Israel News in an exclusive interview, the former envoy said that remarks made by Donald Trump in a bombshell interview with Ravid may have been taken out of context and certainly did not reflect the sentiments expressed by the former president during his time in office.

“Barak Ravid wrote a book about Trump’s policies in the Middle East. I don’t claim to be the single most important influence on that, but I’m certainly in the top three. He never once bothered to speak to me, I would’ve been happy to speak with him,” Friedman told WIN.

“I disagree very much with some of his conclusions,” Friedman added.

In the book, Ravid claims that Trump felt that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas “wanted to make a [peace] deal more than [former prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu.”

“I [had] thought the Palestinians were impossible, and the Israelis would do anything to make peace and a deal. I found that not to be true,” Ravid cited Trump as saying.

Friedman said that Trump’s remarks, if true, were not representative of either his actions or his speech during his four-year term.

“You can look at it as an isolated bunch of comments after the president left office at a time when he was still disappointed at how the election turned out or you can base your view on a very undeniably pro-Israel record,” Friedman said, pointing to Trump’s decision to transfer the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, his declaration of the Golan Heights as sovereign Israeli territory and, on the other hand, his decision to cut funding to the PA over its recalcitrance towards making peace.

“Whatever he said in that interview, on that one day, I wasn’t in the room, I’m not sure what the president was thinking at that time. I worked with the president for four years — I don’t think that anybody was closer to him on the issue of American-Israeli relations — and I never got the sense that he thought that Abbas was the better statesman or a more reliable statesman than Netanyahu,” he said, before going on to note that Netanyahu and Trump had met on several occasions and had a warm relationship.

“I’m not saying he didn’t say it, I’m just no sure what precipitated it, I’m not sure what kind of mood he was in that day, I know that part of his reaction was based on disappointment with how he perceived himself being slighted by Netanyahu when he congratulated [President Joe] Biden on the election,” the former envoy told WIN.

Ravid further claimed that Friedman misled Netanyahu when he said the U.S. would allow Israel to extend sovereignty to Judea and Samaria.

“I remember how I sat in the briefing at Blair House and Netanyahu said, ‘On Sunday we’re annexing,’ because Friedman sold him all sorts of stuff,” Ravid wrote.

“And then half an hour later Friedman knocked at the door of Blair House and said that there had been a misunderstanding and that everything he promised won’t actually happen. Any other version is just made-up nonsense and rewriting history.”

Friedman denied the conversation ever took place and took to Twitter to blast the Israeli journalist.

“Barak, you don’t know what you are talking about and here’s the proof: you wrote a lengthy book ascribing words and deeds to me without ever having even a minute’s conversation with me to verify the facts. You’ve got my phone number — what were you afraid of? Great journalism!”

The post ‘He should’ve called me’ – ex-Trump envoy David Friedman slams veteran Israeli journalist appeared first on World Israel News.

Trump criticized Jewish voters for not lending him their support in the 2020 presidential election.

By Israel Hayom via JNS

Evangelical Christians love Israel more than U.S. Jews, who “either don’t like Israel or don’t care about Israel,” former U.S. President Donald Trump said recently in an interview with Israeli journalist Barak Ravid.

Trump said that when he grew up in New York City, his father, a real estate developer, “Was very close to many Jewish people, because it was Brooklyn real estate, Brooklyn and Queens.”

“[He had] many Jewish friends, a great love of Israel, which has dissipated over the years for people in the United States,” Trump said. “I must be honest, it’s a very dangerous thing that’s happening. People in this country that are Jewish no longer love Israel. I’ll tell you, the evangelical Christians love Israel more than the Jews in this country. It used to be that Israel had absolute power over Congress. And today I think it’s the exact opposite,” Trump told Ravid.

“The New York Times hates Israel, hates them. And they’re Jewish people that run The New York Times,” he said, referring to A.G. Sulzberger, publisher and chairman of the newspaper.

Trump also criticized Jewish voters, the majority of which are traditionally Democrats, for not lending him their support in the 2020 presidential election.

He attributed the shift in U.S. Jewish attitudes on Israel to President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama.

“And yet in the election, they [Democratic Party candidates] still get a lot of votes from the Jewish people. Which tells you that the Jewish people, and I’ve said this for a long time, the Jewish people in the United States either don’t like Israel or don’t care about Israel,” he said.

Commenting on the interview in a podcast, Ravid said, “It’s not only about whether you’re Jewish or not. It’s a lot about whether you’re liberal or conservative,” according to Business Insider.

“I think that for Trump, being liberal is a much bigger sin than being Jewish, but what can you do? It’s the same folks,” added Ravid.

The interview was slammed by Jewish groups in the United States, who have accused Trump of antisemitism.

According to NBC News, the American Jewish Congress condemned the former president for trafficking in “radioactive antisemitic tropes.”

“Why is Mr. Trump once again fueling dangerous stereotypes about Jews?” the AJC asked in a tweet.

“His past support for Israel doesn’t give him license to traffic in radioactive antisemitic tropes — or peddle unfounded conclusions about the unbreakable ties that bind American Jews to Israel,” the group tweeted. “Enough!”

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, also condemned Trump’s remarks, tweeting, “Once again, former President Trump has linked his lack of strong support among most US Jews to their feelings about Israel and used classic antisemitic stereotypes about Israeli and Jewish control of Congress and the press to bolster his argument.

“It’s sad that once again we have to restate this point, but the vast majority of American Jews support and have some type of connection to Israel, regardless of which political candidate they vote for,” he continued.

“Let me be clear: insinuating that Israel or the Jews control Congress or the media is antisemitic, plain and simple. Unfortunately, this is not the first time he has made these offensive remarks,” said Greenblatt.

The post Evangelical Christians love Israel more than American Jews do, says Trump appeared first on World Israel News.

“There is no doubt that Barak Ravid and most of the media hate Trump and Netanyahu and they do everything to lower their profile,” says chairman of Republicans Overseas Marc Zell.

By World Israel News Staff

Despite hot topic comments recently revealed by former U.S. President Donald Trump with regard to former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, relations between the two will be excellent should Trump win the next U.S. presidential elections, American-Israeli lawyer and chairman of Republicans Overseas Marc Zell said in an interview with Arutz Sheva.

According to Zell, Israeli journalist Barak Ravid only now exposed details of the April interview in order to promote his new book. Moreover, Trump only said what he said due to the state he was in following the U.S. elections.

The comments, exposed on Friday, were made during an interview with Ravid in April, a time, according to Zell, that was an emotional for the former president.

In the interview, Trump said that Netanyahu’s congratulatory message to U.S. President Joe Biden after the election came too soon after the election results were announced.

“He was very early. Like earlier than most. I haven’t spoken to him since. F*ck him,” Trump said to Ravid.

However, Zell told Arutz Sheva that “Ravid himself explained in a radio interview that he got the story back in April when Trump was upset about what had happened, but a second interview in July revealed that Trump came out of his anger and was busy attacking Biden.”

Zell said that Ravid is only “making this noise now” due to the release on Sunday of his new book, titled “Trump’s Peace,” on the normalization deals between Israel and Arab states, which were brokered with the help of the Trump administration.

Following the U.S. election, Netanyahu actually received major backlash for the amount of time he waited to congratulate Biden.

“He waited longer than any other leader in the West to send a blessing to Biden, and even when he sent the blessing he congratulated on the achievements during the Trump era,” Zell told Arutz Sheva.

Zell said that the weight now given by the media to Trump’s harsh statements stems from a political trend to belittle Netanyahu’s power.

“There is no doubt that Barak Ravid and most of the media hate Trump and Netanyahu and they do everything to lower their profile,” Zell said.

He added that he has no doubt that should Trump return to power in the next elections, relations between him and Netanyahu will be “excellent.”

“I have no doubt about it, because each of them cares about the interests of his own country. Trump made the moves [with Israel] because he thought it was in the best interests of the United States,” says Zell.

The post Despite curse, Trump-Netanyahu relations will be excellent in future appeared first on World Israel News.