Yair Netanyahu, son of former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives for a court hearing in the defamation lawsuit filed by former MK Stav Shafir in Tel Aviv.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s son, Yair, hinted that state prosecutors who were involved in the decision to charge his father with bribery, fraud and breach of trust, need to be tried for treason and, if found guilty, sentenced to death.
The younger Netanyahu made the comment on a talk show on the right-wing Galei Yisrael station.
“There was a malicious coup d’état here,” Yair Netanyahu said of the decision to indict his father. “They knew they were setting up an innocent man who happened to be the prime minister elected by the Israeli people. That means they were canceling a democratic election made by the people. That is called treason. And everyone is invited to look up the law and see what the punishment is for treason. I’ll just say that it is not prison time.”
The punishment for treason in Israel is death.
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Yair Netanyahu makes a stormy appearance at Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court, December 2018. (credit: AVSHALOM SHOSHANI)Yair Netanyahu’s influence over father’s policies
Yair Netanyahu is known to be extremely influential in his father’s policies and political decisions. Yair’s hard line against the legal establishment has been increasingly adopted by his father, as if he was following his son’s lead after he tested the waters for him with trial balloons. Likud figures said a year ago that it was no coincidence that the prime minister started to regularly and publicly attack the legal establishment since Yair’s influence increased.
Yair Netanyahu has also found himself in the past trouble. He recently lost a libel suit brought against him by a former journalist who the younger Netanyahu had called a mole working with the state prosecution against his father.
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