Last February, Yair Netanyahu, the son of Prime Minister benjamin netanyahu, was ordered to pay state witness Nir Hefetz 75,000 shekels for privacy violations. Netanyahu Jr. systematically violated a gag order on details from Hefetz's police investigation as part of a campaign he has been waging for years against witnesses in his father's criminal trial.

Yair Netanyahu is considered one of the central figures in what is known as The Poison Machine, and even one of its "founders" along with PR consultants Yonatan Orich and Topaz Luk. The term loosely describes a mechanism that is partly organized and funded and partly voluntary, comprised of paid advisors, media personalities, and ordinary citizens, characterized by spreading messages containing incitement, provocation, polarization, defamation, and falsehoods serving the aims of Netanyahu Sr.

Hefetz's lawsuit, which demanded half a million shekels in compensation, is one of a series of legal proceedings centered around Netanyahu Jr., stemming from his toxic activity on social networks, where he spreads defamation, lies, and conspiracies to promote his father's political interests or agendas of the extreme right.

In total, Netanyahu Jr. has been ordered to pay damages amounting to approximately 750,000 shekels for defamation and libel. The cost of managing these proceedings themselves, if Netanyahu is indeed paying his attorneys, could also amount to hundreds of thousands of shekels.

However, despite no knowledge of any significant career that Netanyahu Jr. maintains, these expenses do not appear to be ones he cannot afford: it was revealed during one of the proceedings that he holds approximately 700,000 shekels in his checking account alone, and hundreds of thousands more in deposits.

Additionally, the Netanyahu family owns several valuable real estate properties, and Netanyahu Sr. is on trial, among other things, for benefits worth millions of shekels from a couple of billionaires, only some of which were included in the indictment. In the past, he also declared that he receives cash from wealthy relatives, and wealthy individuals have even offered to finance his legal defense.

Defamation, Lies, and Conspiracies

So far, Netanyahu Jr. has lost several defamation lawsuits. He lost a defamation lawsuit filed against him by journalist Avi Alkalay, former editor of the news site Walla. Netanyahu spread a false conspiracy theory that attributed to Alkalay membership in a secret brotherhood (the Wexner Foundation) working to overthrow Israel's Prime Minister by fabricating the cases against him. Netanyahu Jr. was ordered to pay the full amount of the lawsuit, a quarter of a million shekels, after failing to file a defense statement. A series of failed appeals and payment refusals that led to enforcement proceedings eventually set the amount at about 420,000 shekels (Netanyahu Jr. demanded that the state pay the compensation on his behalf).

Yair Netanyahu also lost in a lawsuit filed against him by graduates of the Wexner Foundation, which works to strengthen leadership and managerial excellence in Israel's public sector. Netanyahu Jr. spread a false conspiracy that the foundation's graduates are members of a secret pedophile cult aimed at executing a governmental coup, and called for banning them from working in civil service. The foundation's graduates waived the financial compensation they demanded and settled for an apology from Netanyahu Jr. and the deletion of the defamatory remarks:

"After examining myself and learning the background of its graduates, I believe that my statements in these publications were incorrect, inappropriate, and I find it proper to apologize for them. I have removed these publications and also call on others not to publish similar things and to remove any copy of my publication," Netanyahu Jr. was forced to publish.

Yair Netanyahu also lost a defamation lawsuit filed against him by former Knesset member Stav Shaffir, and a countersuit he filed against her. The appeal he filed was rejected, and he was ordered to pay court expenses of 7,500 shekels in addition to the 70,000 he was ordered to pay in the original ruling. Two courts determined that the statements claiming Yair Netanyahu is lazy, racist, and a harasser are protected by the Truth in Publication defense in the Israeli Defamation Law.

Yair Netanyahu lost a defamation lawsuit filed against him by political activist Dana Cassidy and was ordered to compensate her with 160,000 shekels. Netanyahu Jr. published false tweets attributing to Cassidy a romance with politician Benny Gantz. After losing, he filed an appeal, claiming Cassidy benefited from his defamatory remarks against her.

About five years ago, he published an apology to News 12 journalist Dana Weiss, against whom he had published a defamatory and misogynistic post, in order to avoid a lawsuit. Even earlier, in July 2019, Yair Netanyahu won for the first and last time in a defamation lawsuit he filed against political activist Abie Benjamin.

Benjamin, who published a conspiracy claiming that Netanyahu Jr. is involved in criminal activity and uses a fake passport issued for him by the Mossad, at the Prime Minister's request, for security reasons, as a means of laundering bribe money given to the Prime Minister by hiding it in a bank account in Panama, was ordered to pay compensation of 27,500 shekels.

Additional mutual lawsuits in which Netanyahu Jr. was involved were with the leftist organization Molad. The court dismissed the lawsuits and recommended that the parties resolve their disputes outside the court.

Netanyahu Jr. also sued attorney Ilit Gilad, who represented people who sued him, including Avi Alkalay. Netanyahu sued for half a million shekels after Gilad insulted him on social media ("a free eating parasite with no life skills," "a child who made a career from sugar daddies' money," "pathetic, racist, and lacking understanding," etc.). Netanyahu gave up pursuing the lawsuit, and it was dismissed.

There are additional pending lawsuits against Yair Netanyahu that are still being adjudicated in court: Haaretz journalist Yossi Klein is suing him and the Likud party for 300,000 shekels after they published a false publication attributing to him statements opposite to what he wrote. Netanyahu rolled the blame to the ultra-Orthodox media personality Yair Levy, who in turn claimed that Netanyahu Jr. is harassing him because he dared to criticize his father. Recently, the court stayed the proceedings until the completion of a previous proceeding filed on the same matter.

The Crime Minister organization, of protest activists from and NGO called Hoze Hadash (New Contract), sued Yair Netanyahu for compensation of half a million shekels after he insulted them on Twitter, compared them to members of Nazi militias, and stated that they receive "foreign funding." Protest activist Attorney Gonen Ben-Yitzhak also sued Netanyahu Jr. for half a million shekels, along with Netanyahu Sr. and Topaz Luk, one of Netanyahu Sr.'s PR consultants. Ben-Yitzhak claimed that the three published false publications attributing violence to him with the aim of inciting against him.

Don't Write About Me

In May 2023, Netanyahu Jr. left Israel and moved to the United States. He also shifted his legal activity, and instead of defamation lawsuits, he now preferers to focus on attempts to obtain restraining orders against activists and journalists who report about him.

In June 2023, he sought to obtain a restraining order against Gonen Ben-Yitzhak because the latter reported on his travels abroad, insulted him, and exposed "intimate aspects." At the end of the court hearing, it was agreed that Ben-Yitzhak could continue to report on Netanyahu's public activities.

In September of that year, he was forced to withdraw a request for a restraining order he filed against Ophir Gottlieb, one of the leaders of UnXeptable, the international protest movement against the judicial overhaul in Israel, based on a collection of unsubstantiated claims.

In May 2024, the court rejected his request to issue a restraining order against protest activist Nava Rozolio, because publishing photographs of a public figure in a public place is not "threatening harassment" but a legitimate protest action.

In September 2024, he asked the court to issue an order to prevent threatening harassment, against Eran Kamin, a former police officer who investigated his father, without any evidence and without even bothering to appear for the hearing. The request was rejected.

Additionally, Netanyahu Jr. also filed a defamation lawsuit against Haaretz journalist Uri Misgav, who frequently reports on him and his world travels. Netanyahu Jr. demanded compensation of half a million shekels and claimed that it is forbidden to publish any information about his location and actions because he is a "secured personality" on one hand and a "private person" on the other. The lawsuit is still ongoing, and Misgav claimed in his defense statement, among other things:

"More than anything, it is sad to see that the Prime Minister's son, who has turned himself into a public figure, chooses to file a lawsuit that is entirely based on a demand to harm freedom of expression, the democratic principles of the State of Israel, contradicts all the rulings on these matters, and has no basis whatsoever, all while the plaintiff is staying in Miami, far from the complex security situation, surrounded by experienced Shin Bet bodyguards in a luxury apartment (with the Israeli public paying for the bodyguards at least) and viciously attacking IDF servicemen, the families of the hostages, and other Israeli groups and opinion expressers who oppose his father's continued tenure."