TEL AVIV – Benjamin Netanyahu, who left office a year agoHis wife, Sara and their eldest son, Yair, are suing his predecessor, Israel’s Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, for defamation after he described them as “mentally ill” and in need of treatment. psychiatric treatment.
For his part, Mr. Olmert does not regret the ruins he has caused the Netanyahu family in two interviews around the time of the bitter and inconclusive election in the spring of 2021.
Now, two former prime ministers – ardent political enemies – are up against it in a squalid defamation trial that some liken to a soap opera.
On Monday, the Israelis had to suspend the consequences a day after Israeli protagonists and other public figures stood before witnesses for more than 13 hours of testimonies rife with quarrels, snipers and accusations. forcing many of the disorders associated with the Netanyahus.
In normal times, Sunday’s hearing at the Tel Aviv Magistrates Court might have been dismissed as a sometimes grotesque indication of the depth to which Israeli political discourse can sink.
But smears are growing as the country’s current governing coalition, a fragile coalition of eight ideologically distinct parties led by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, leaning over on the brink of collapse – and Mr. Netanyahu appeared close to engineering a possible return.
Another member of Mr. Bennett .’s coalition give up on Monday, leaving the government in control of only 59 seats in the 120-seat National Assembly and bringing the prospect of another election, the fifth in less than four years, closer than ever.
“It was a reality show,” Gadi Wolfsfeld, a professor of political communication at Reichman University in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv, said of the trial. “Or worse, a soap opera. So sad.”
Still, he said, the courtroom drama is unlikely to have much of an impact on the political landscape.
“Remember, there are very few people who don’t have a firm view of Bibi,” he said, referring to Mr. Netanyahu by his nickname. “So for the majority of the population, it won’t make the slightest difference.”
Neither Mr Olmert nor Mr Netanyahu were strangers to the court. Mr. Netanyahu, who holds the record as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister after a total of 15 years in office, is currently trying it out at the Jerusalem District Court for corruption. Mr. Olmert, in office from 2006 to 2009, was convicted in 2014 of taking bribes while he was mayor of Jerusalem and service 16 months in prison.
The latest courtroom scene sparked alarming accusations about the pressures Mr. Netanyahu faces in his family and his inability to bear them, this time by several former advisers close to his family. most of his oath.
As the date of testimony progressed, wild rumors and reports of disturbing developments accompanying Mr. Netanyahu’s long tenure were broadcast as Mr Olmert’s attorney and witnesses defended Mr. advocate for links to eating disorders, obsessive-compulsive behavior, uncontrolled tantrums, narcissism and paranoia in the Netanyahu family.
“The testimony heard in court on Sunday was nauseating and horrifying, reviving grim memories of what we discarded exactly a year ago,” said Yossi Verter, a political columnist. , Written in the left-wing newspaper Haaretz on Monday.
But Mr. Verter, like other analysts, said nothing could upset Mr. Netanyahu’s allies and staunch supporters and perhaps even benefit him, as he closed the door. as a victim of persecution.
A political ally of Mr. Netanyahu, Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right lawmaker, Written in a Twitter post that he was “disgusted” by the “satanic foundation” of efforts to smear the Netanyahu family.
The Netanyahus are suing Mr Olmert for damages of more than $250,000 because, according to them, his characteristic of being mentally ill makes him a former prime minister, as a former prime minister, for some hidden clinical diagnoses did not exist and he crossed a red line.
Olmert’s lawyer, Amir Tytunovich, said in an interview that his client’s main defense was that he was expressing his views at a turbulent time in Israeli politics, saying “out of emotion and worried about the future of the country,” and that Mr Olmert was telling the truth, even though he clearly did not make a professional clinical diagnosis.
“This is my position and I am not going to change it,” Mr. Olmert said in a brief interview with The New York Times outside the courtroom.
Mr. Netanyahu was the first to stand in the stands on Sunday, often returning to play with an audience, mostly legal reporters for the Hebrew news agency.
“I have no psychiatric history, and the burden of proof is on you, not me!” he announced as Mr. Olmert sat across from him in the small, crowded courtroom.
Sara Netanyahu, a certified psychologist, categorically denied reports that she was hospitalized in a sanatorium in Vienna last year, insisting that it was “a lie from beginning to end.”
She asserts that a audio tape hers shouting at a journalist over the phone in 2009 was “cooked” and “manipulated”. And when Mr. Tytunovich, Mr. Olmert’s lawyer, suggested that she liked vodka, she replied that she did not drink but that a stock of healthy liquor had been left in the by previous tenant, Mr. Olmert. Prime Minister’s Palace. .
Yair Netanyahu, the couple’s eldest son, has faced a series of posts on his own social media in which he attributes mental illness to other public figures. Explaining why he wrote that a former defense minister and Netanyahu opponent, Moshe Yaalon, should be in a mental institution, he said, “I wanted to scoff at his obsession with with my father.”
Tamar Almog, legal commentator for Kan, Israel’s public broadcaster, described the proceedings as like “half circus, half preschool.” But Uzi Arad, a witness for defense who served as Mr Netanyahu’s national security adviser and a confidant of Mr Netanyahu before falling into disarray, said the turmoil he witnessed The opinion in Mr Netanyahu’s family is “exactly a price from the country”.
He described an incident where Mr. Netanyahu was unprepared for his trip to Washington and could not be briefed on the plane because he insisted on sitting with Sara all the way, preventing Mr. Arad from sharing classified information. According to Arad, the negligence led to a huge shock in Mr. Netanyahu’s meeting with US Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates at the time, causing the Pentagon to cut ties with Israel for two months.
Nir Hefetz, Mr. Netanyahu’s former spokesman who became a state witness in his corruption trial, testified before the court about the continued interference of Ms. Netanyahu and her son in getting out. national decision. He said that Yair once burst into a meeting his father was holding with other officials, kneeling on all fours and wagging his tongue, berating his father crudely for sucking and licking those present.
“Should I apologize later today?” Mr. Olmert spoke outside the courtroom.
In a Facebook parcel On Monday, Mr. Netanyahu wrote that Mr. Olmert “gave former employees to give false statements and slander my family with a baseless libel.”
The parties’ attorneys must now compile their arguments before the judge issues a ruling, which has not yet been scheduled.
