Legal Blow for Journalist Guy Peleg: Ordered to Pay Activist NIS 29,000
Legal affairs reporter Guy Peleg has been ordered to pay Likud activist Rami Ben Yehuda 29,000 shekels (approximately $7,800 USD) in damages after calling him a "criminal" during a radio broadcast. The ruling was made by Judge Shlomi Schneider.
The case originated in 2022 when Peleg, hosting a show on Radio 103FM, commented on a video Ben Yehuda had posted criticizing Liat Ben Ari, a prosecutor in the Netanyahu trial. Peleg questioned how a "reformed society" could allow a "criminal in the language of the desperate" to threaten the prosecutor's son. Ben Yehuda subsequently sued for defamation, seeking 70,000 shekels, asserting he was a political activist, not a criminal. The lawsuit was filed in May 2024, several months before Ben Yehuda was convicted of two assault charges.
Peleg's defense argued that his remarks were colloquial, that he had issued a clarification the following week, and that Ben Yehuda had already been convicted of assaults predating the broadcast by the time of the court hearing. However, Judge Schneider rejected these arguments. The judge determined that when a senior legal correspondent uses the term "criminal," a reasonable listener would interpret it as a factual assertion of a criminal conviction, not merely an opinion. Since Ben Yehuda had not yet been convicted at the time of the broadcast, the judge ruled that the defense of "truth" was invalid.
Peleg was ordered to pay 18,000 shekels in compensation and an additional 11,000 shekels for legal costs and attorney fees. A request for Peleg to broadcast an apology was denied.
