Wexner Fellowship Graduates Slam 1 Million NIS Defamation Suit Against Yair Netanyahu

HERTZLIYA (VINnews) — 75 graduates of the prestigious Wexner Israel Fellowship at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government filed a 1 million shekel defamation lawsuit at Herzliya court Tuesday morning against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son, Yair Netanyahu.

Netanyahu tweeted in February, calling graduates of the fellowship, which allows senior civil servants in Israel to spend a year studying at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, a”cult of pedophiles” on Twitter. He also demanded legislation which would ban fellowship graduates from serving in Israel’s civil service. Netanyahu was referring to the fact that convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein had been a trustee of the foundation and that the foundation had paid Ehud Barak a huge sum for a study never published. Rumors had surfaced of Barak’s association with Epstein’s criminal activities.

Netanyahu’s father, Binyamin Netanyahu, decided to reexamine the relationship between Israel and the foundation in July, after a Knesset hearing claimed that the program has a “left-wing bias” and may be encouraging public officials to undermine the orders of the ministers.

The hundreds of graduates of the fellowship include some of the most prominent members of Israel’s public sector: IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi; Prof. Hezi Levi, director-general of the Health Ministry; and Dr. Maurit Beeri, director-general of Alyn Hospital for handicapped children. Many of the graduates were insulted by Yair Netanyahu’s assertion.

Before filing the lawsuit, the graduates asked Netanyahu to apologize to them on social media, but he refused. They then asked him to refute what he wrote, admit that it was baseless and harmful and ask those who shared his tweets to remove them. When he declined, the request was added to the lawsuit.

“What was written was not coincidental and was intended to advance the interests of the defendant and portray the graduates to the public as unfit for public service and as people trying to overthrow the government,” the lawsuit states. “Severe damage was done to the good name of all the graduates who earned good reputations through years of public service.”

The graduates who filed the lawsuit include senior military and civil personnel, such as former state prosecutor Moshe Lador, former Military Intelligence chief Maj-Gen. (Res.) Amos Yadlin, Maj-Gen. (Res.) Noam Tibon, Colonel (Res.) Eran Lerman, Alyn Hospital director-general Dr. Maurit Beeri and Channel 13 defense analyst Alon Ben-David.

Yair Netanyahu responded through his family’s spokesman Ofer Golan, stating that “Such ridiculous and delusional lawsuits aimed at silencing Yair are not even worthy of a yawn.”