On the night of the U.S. Presidential election, Yinon Magal, the host of a popular talk show on Israel's Channel 14, burst onto the set wearing a "TRUMP 2024" baseball cap. "I'm a journalist first and foremost," he told the studio audience. "So I won't tell you who I'm supporting Donald or Trump."His fans gave him an obliging laugh; a father and son sitting beside me snickered loudly enough to be captured on camera. (Before the taping, a studio manager had advised the crowd to react generously, "or Yinon will kick you out.")

The Trump bit was just a preamble; the show's real focus was a scandal involving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. An hour earlier, Netanyahu had called his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, into a private meeting and fired him. Netanyahu cited differences over Israel's prosecution of the war in Gaza. But, in Gallant's telling, the main reason was political: he had refused to support a law exempting yeshiva students from military service-a sop to ultraOrthodox politicians, who help fill out the coalition that keeps Netanyahu in power. The Prime Minister's critics were accusing him of sacrificing military stability to advance his own interests. Magal offered a mocking rejoinder: "Hello! Calm down! You're the ones who said that everyone responsible for October 7th should leave. So what's the matter? We started with Gallant!"

Every week night at nine, Magal's show "Hapatriotim," or "The Patriots"-assembles a roundtable of hardright media personalities, nationalist former liberals, and politicians from Netanyahu's Likud Party. Most of the guests, like Magal, belong to a loose confederation known as the Bibi-ists, devoted to defending the Prime Minister as he moves increasingly to the far reaches of the right wing. If Channel 14 is Netanyahu's Fox News, Magal is its Tucker Carlson an object of such devotion that his fans have to be dissuaded from charging the stage to take selfies with him during commercial breaks.