Court orders PM’s son to ‘cease harassing’ demonstrators
Judge orders Yair Netanyahu to stop harassing protestors’ leaders against his father for the next 6 months after he posted their addresses and encouraged followers to picket their homes
Yair Netanyahu/ photo credit Motti Kimchi/ Ynet
The Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court this morning (Sunday) ordered Yair Netanyahu, the prime minister’s son, to stop “harassing” the organizers of demonstrators calling for his father’s resignation.
Yair Netanyahu, 29, known for his provocations on social media, tweeted the details of the organizers of the protestors in front of the prime minister’s official residence in Jerusalem. He called right-wing fans to harass them outside their homes.
His tweet reads: “I invite everyone to demonstrate, day and night, in front of the houses of these people who organize anarchy in our country.”
Thousands of demonstrators have been taking place throughout Israel almost every day for weeks calling Netanyahu “Crime Minister” for being indicted in November 2019 for corruption, fraud, and breach of trust in three cases – a first for an incumbent Israeli prime minister.
Advocate Gonen Ben Yitzhak, who represents the “Crime Minister” movement and one of those seeking the order, said at the beginning of the hearing: “We are after a weekend of threats because Yair Netanyahu called on his gangs to come and do justice to us. Even after we applied to order – it did not deter him from continuing to spread the calls.
In the comments to Yair’s tweet on Twitter and Facebook, statements such as “Let’s go up to their house and burn them and their families.”
The judge asked if Netanyahu could delete such comments and Adv. Ben Yitzhak replied that he could remove the tweet and thus delete the comments.
Advocate Yossi Cohen, representing Yair Netanyahu, responded to the allegations: “Yair Netanyahu is not responsible for the responses and condemns them in every language of request. He also suffers from tens of thousands of publications as a result of the activities of organizations such as this organization, which is the most serious and violent and the last that has any right to ask for protection. ”
Advocate Cohen added: “Sitting here is one of the people suspected and interrogated with threats of the assassination of Yair Netanyahu. A person who is dangerous to the public who has been documented rioting with a stick in his hand. ”
Advocate Cohen also claimed that “no injustice was done here that justifies the issuance of an order. There is no doubt that the complete publication is a photocopy of a public document that, according to the Associations Law, not only can it be published but must be published.
“These people are protesting in front of the prime minister’s residence, calling for a demonstration near Minister Ohana’s house. ”
Yair Netanyahu, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son; Ethiopian-Israeli protesters last Tuesday i
Photo: Yariv Katz, Shaul Golan
At this point, Judge Dorit Feinstein asked if respondent Yair Netanyahu did not see the difference between ministers and public figures and the applicants.
Justice Feinstein demanded the tweet be deleted and added that Yair Netanyahu must “cease harassing protest organizers for six months and no longer publish their private addresses.”
In reaction, young Netanyahu published a tweet criticizing the judge for not having taken into account “the death threats he received aimed at him.”
His father denounced in a statement “all acts of violence and harassment.”
Read more about: Anti-Netanyahu protests, Yair Netanyahu
