The opening hearing in the evidence phase of the mutual trial between Yair Netanyahu and former Labor MK Stav Shafir was marked by a raucous court session in which Netanyahu was escorted out of the courtroom amid repeated uproar.
Shafir is suing Netanyahu – the prime minister’s oldest son – for sexual harassment she wrote about him on Twitter. Netanyahu filed a retaliation lawsuit over Shafir’s own social media posts.
Netanyahu was ordered out of the Tel Aviv magistrate’s court by the judge after he blocked Shafir from giving his testimony, and at one point was heard calling her a “bitch”.
Shafir began the proceedings by rejecting a request by Netanyahu’s legal team to drop his lawsuit against his client.
“If I felt there would be a change in his violence and behaviour, I would consider it,” she told the courtroom.
Shafir is seeking NIS 263,000 ($76,600) for Twitter posts by Netanyahu in 2020 that she claims were slanderous and sexual harassment. Netanyahu has sued him in exchange for NIS 300,000 ($87,385) for the comments he made at the time, as well as other previous social media posts.
Former MK Stav Shafir arrives in court for a hearing of a defamation lawsuit filed against Yair Netanyahu in Tel Aviv on November 29, 2022. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)
The mutual lawsuits stemmed from acrimonious exchanges between the two in April 2020, while Israel was under a strict COVID lockdown over Passover. Then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted a photo of his family celebrating together, drawing criticism from his youngest son, Avner Netanyahu, who was not living with him.
Shafir tweeted that he was disappointed with the Prime Minister’s behaviour.
In response, Yair Netanyahu criticized the former lawmaker, citing his Knesset run with former Prime Minister Ehud Barak in the Democratic Union Party. Barack was infamous for visiting the New York home of disgraced American financier Jeffrey Epstein, but has denied any wrongdoing.
“Are you sure you want to speak about ethics in light of the failed project I tried to set up with a pedophile enthusiast and frequent visitor to Epstein’s Pedophile Island?” Yair Netanyahu tweeted at Shafir. “You are ugly inside and out. Find yourself a permanent Arab husband who will not throw you out, move to some village, become a Muslim and leave us alone.
In response, Shafir wrote that she was missing her family over the holiday.
“Now, as I read what the prime minister’s son, who is educated in his own ways and lives on his own money, has written, I miss him even more,” she wrote. “You are a liar, an oppressor, and an evil and racist person. The child’s mouth is the father’s inheritance.”
“Communist, idiot, pedophile enthusiast, you saved me from derogatory names for Epstein, Barack and your other friends. I don’t take a shekel from the state,” Netanyahu retorted. “On the other hand, you pay the taxpayer NIS 8 million.”
Yair Netanyahu, son of Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu, arrives in court for a hearing of a defamation lawsuit filed by former MK Stav Shafir in Tel Aviv on November 29, 2022. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)
In his lawsuit, Shafir claims that Netanyahu’s tweets were false, defamatory and sexually offensive. Netanyahu argues that he was only defending himself against Shafir’s remarks.
He is seeking compensation for Facebook and Twitter posts including the Passover exchange and since 2019 when Shafir wrote that he was “filth”.
Netanyahu’s lawyer, Yariv Lankari, suggested that Shafir was only suing his client in order to remain relevant in political life after his exit from the Knesset, and his remarks provoked an online social media battle.
“Are you saying that someone is inviting verbal sexual assault?” Shafir said. “It is referring to the victim as someone who has committed a crime on himself.”
“Netanyahu, as a public figure, even though he was not elected by the public, used sexual violence as a tactic, trying to betray the security of the state to me,” she said.
“What nonsense, you had an Arab lover. What do you want?” Netanyahu retorted.
Shafir replied: “That is a complete lie, there is nothing wrong with an Arab partner, and if I had one I would say so.”
Netanyahu also accused Shafir of “stealing eight million shekels from the public” and mocked that he was “crying tears for her”, noting that she is married to Amit Stibbe, son of alleged billionaire Ayton Stibbe .
The prime minister’s son was possibly referring to the NIS 8 million that Shafir and Barak borrowed from the Knesset for their joint election run in 2019, which they failed to pay back after the Knesset was dissolved for the immediately following election. failed.
During the session, Judge Avium Barkai repeatedly warned Netanyahu that he would be ejected if he did not end his outburst, and eventually ordered him to leave the courtroom. As Netanyahu walked out, he was heard muttering “bitch” to himself.
He later returned, Channel 13 reported, but was ejected after creating a ruckus again, and remained outside the courtroom until Shafir finished his testimony.
In his testimony, Netanyahu said that: “For me, it is another day that my blood is shed. I am being tarred and feathered. I am not a voodoo doll. I am a human being. Mrs. Stav Shafir a Billionaire Husband, for her it is like buying chewing gum. She is wasting the court’s time.”
Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) and Likud MK Miki Zohar at a meeting of opposition parties in Netanyahu’s right-wing-religious bloc at the Knesset in Jerusalem, June 14, 2021. (Jonathan Sindel/Flash90)
Also on Tuesday, the Lod Magistrate’s Court ordered Crime Minister Political Movement to pay Likud MK Miki Zohar NIS 10,000 in a defamation lawsuit filed against the group that ousted Benjamin Netanyahu from power while he was in office. demanded removal.
The movement called Zohar “a soldier in Netanyahu’s criminal organization” who does not stop lying and inciting.
The organization was also ordered to pay NIS 22,500 as court fees.
“Justice has been served,” Zohar said in a statement. “I hope in future they stop defaming elected officials and damaging their good name. Freedom of expression is a supreme value in a democracy, but in no way is it intended to become a freedom to slander and malign.
Netanyahu led a bloc of right-wing religious parties to victory in the November 1 elections and is engaged in coalition talks to form the next government.