Yair Netanyahu says Nazi director could learn a lot from Israeli media

The young Netanyahu has a history of referring to the darkest historical regimes when discussing Israeli current reality.

YAIR NETANYAHU at a recent court hearing. (photo credit: AVSHALOM SHOSHANI)
YAIR NETANYAHU at a recent court hearing.
(photo credit: AVSHALOM SHOSHANI)
Yair Netanyahu, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s eldest son, tweeted on Thursday that Nazi film director Leni Riefenstahl “could have learned a lot from the Israeli media.”

Riefenstahl was a Nazi film director famous for such films as the 1935 film Triumph of the Will and the 1936 film Olympia about the Olympic Games held in Hitler-led Germany. Both films, despite their ideology, are still regarded today as impressive milestones in the history of moving pictures. When Haaretz Magazine’s deputy editor Uriah Canaff replied and asked what exactly Israeli media could learn, Netanyahu replied by saying that Canaff should ask the company which owns Haaretz as “they know a thing or two about Nazi propaganda.”

Haaretz is partly owned by German publisher M. DuMont Schauberg, which owns 20% of the company as of 2011. The German company had been in business since 1802 and, during the Nazi era, used its papers to promote that ideology.
The young Netanyahu has a history of referring to the darkest historical regimes when discussing the current reality in Israel. In April, The Jerusalem Post reported that he compared police to the Gestapo, the secret police used in Nazi Germany to torture and kill those who opposed Hitler.
Allegedly, the young Netanyahu is very involved in the decision-making processes of his father, especially on social media. Reports in the Israeli media have claimed that he enjoys unlimited access to any discussion his father is having at the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem, as he lives there as a family member. It was also reported that he allegedly arranged for media coverage of his romantic life and attempted to dictate to news portals how to report.
These reports had been denied by the young Netanyahu himself, as well as by his father.