Judge Rules Netanyahu Illegally Used State Events for Campaign

Judge Solberg ruled on Sunday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu illegally used five out of six official events for prohibited election propaganda. As a consequence, Netanyahu was personally ordered to pay 29,000 shekels in expenses.

The examined events were part of the Prime Minister's Office's official activities and were therefore expected to be free of election campaigning. However, Solberg determined that in most of the cases reviewed, these events were also used to promote political messages during the election campaign.

Among the official events scrutinized were a press conference concerning Iran and a situation assessment attended by the senior forum of the IDF. A visit by Netanyahu to southern Lebanon was also included in the events found to have been used for propaganda purposes.

In total, six official events were reviewed, held by the Prime Minister's Office or within the framework of Netanyahu's activities as Prime Minister. Solberg found that only one event did not involve prohibited election propaganda, while the other five exceeded the permissible boundaries.

In addition to the ruling on the use of these events, Solberg ordered Netanyahu to personally pay 29,000 shekels in expenses. This means the charge was levied against Netanyahu himself, not the Likud party. One reason for this personal charge was that Likud was not a party to the petition, making it impossible to divide the expenses between Netanyahu and the party.

The decision establishes a clear boundary between state and official events, conducted within the Prime Minister's official duties, and activities aimed at promoting election propaganda. In this instance, Solberg concluded that this boundary was crossed in five of the six events examined.