Netanyahu files lawsuit against 'several factors' for incitement

Netanyahu claimed on Friday that he intends to file a libel suit against Blue and White leaders Benny Gantz, Yair Lapid and Moshe Ya'alon for calling him a traitor.

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Michael Dvorin, the Likud Party's lawyer, filed a complaint to Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit and State Attorney Shai Nitzan on Sunday, demanding that a criminal investigation be launched against several entities distributing content claiming the prime minister committed treason, on the allegations of incitement.
"The aim of these publications is to dehumanize the Prime Minister, to harm his reputation, his dignity and his image as a loyal person who has served the interests of the State of Israel for decades," Dvorin wrote in his complaint. "It is enough to observe the intensity of the hatred and incitement against the Netanyahu among left-wing activists that could lead to the next political murder which is likely to be just around the corner."
In a summary of the complaint, Dvorin wrote: "We ask that you immediately start a criminal investigation into the above two cases of incitement and make a public statement that not everything is permitted and freedom of expression should be set where it becomes a freedom of incitement, endanger the life of the object of incitement, in this case, that of the prime minister of Israel."
Netanyahu claimed on Friday that he intends to file a libel suit against Blue and White Party leaders Benny Gantz, Yair Lapid and Moshe Ya'alon for calling him a traitor, to which Lapid replied, "sue me."
 
The prime minister's remarks came as a response to the comments made by Blue and White leaders on Wednesday regarding his role in the submarine scandal, in which Ya'alon even said that “the issue is so important that it could end up to have been betrayal.”