World Yair Netanyahu (tv), the son of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (th), has once again been ordered to pay compensation in a libel case. Photo: Sputnik / AP / NTB Read more Close
NTB
30 Aug. 2023 17:05 – Updated 30 Aug. 2023 17:06
Yair Netanyahu, the son of Israel’s prime minister, must pay NOK 360,000 to a woman he accused of having an affair with his father’s political rival.
The 32-year-old wrote several Twitter messages just before the 2020 election in which he claimed that former Defense Minister Benny Gantz had a relationship with a woman.
Gantz was Benjamin Netanyahu’s main challenger in the election, and the woman filed a libel suit against the prime minister’s son with a claim for compensation.
A court in Kfar Saba on Wednesday sentenced Yair Netanyahu to pay the woman close to NOK 360,000 in compensation, several Israeli media outlets, including the newspaper Haaretz.
Shocking
– The Twitter messages were a shocking and excellent example of the violent and shameful discourse in social media, the judge ruled.
Yair Netanyahu has no formal post, but is considered an influential adviser to his father. He has ended up in court several times in the past due to attacks and accusations he has made in social media. Recently, he had to pay NOK 190,000 in another defamation case.
A few weeks ago, he caused a stir when, in a post, he referred to Israel’s defense chief Herzi Halevi as “the most unsuccessful and destructive defense chief” in the country’s history.
The background for the outcome was that over 10,000 reservists announced in a petition that they will no longer report for military service if Netanyahu’s government implements a controversial judicial reform.
Sent into exile
In the past, Yair Netanyahu has drawn strong criticism for having claimed that there will only be peace in Israel when the country is emptied of Muslims. Today, 20 percent of the inhabitants are Palestinians, and the vast majority of them are Muslims.
In March this year, the prime minister’s son suddenly disappeared from the public eye, and after several months of speculation, he appeared in the United States.
According to Israeli media it was his father who sent him into exile after first demanding that he stay away from both social media and the ministers in the government. Now he is back in Israel.
2023-08-30 15:05:44
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