Israeli Journalist Steif Ordered to Pay Former Bar Head Naveh $120,000

Journalist Hadas Steif and Galei Tzahal (Army Radio) have been ordered to pay Efi Naveh, the former head of the Israel Bar Association, NIS 450,000 (approximately $120,000) in damages for initiating the hack of his private phone, which led to the "sex for appointments" scandal. District Court Judge Oren Schwartz ruled that Steif was primarily responsible for the act, though she did not personally breach the phone. She had passed Naveh's phone, left at his home in 2019 after separating from his then-wife Hani Naveh, to Yuli Rosenberg, who successfully accessed its contents.

The phone's contents revealed that Naveh had allegedly solicited and received sexual favors from judicial candidates in exchange for promoting their appointments through the Bar Association's representatives on the Judicial Appointments Committee. Naveh's case was later closed when State Prosecutor Amit Issman determined that Hani Naveh's taking of the phone rendered all evidence obtained from it inadmissible. A similar reason led to the closure of the case against Magistrate Judge Eti Krayf, who was suspected of offering sex for promotion and subsequently resigned.

Judge Schwartz rejected Naveh's NIS 7 million lawsuit against other media figures, including Razi Barkai, Nurit Kanti, Ilal Shahar, and Shimon Elkabetz, who were involved in a special broadcast about Naveh on Galei Tzahal. The court found they acted in good faith and within their journalistic duties, and that the information was true and of public importance, thus granting them protection under privacy laws. However, Steif was denied such protections because her actions to obtain the information were illegal and unethical. The judge emphasized that journalists cannot participate in or assist in a crime while seeking information and then claim privacy law protections.

Schwartz determined that Steif was responsible for the severe invasion of Naveh's privacy, stemming from the phone hack and data extraction, rather than the subsequent broadcast, which was deemed newsworthy. Galei Tzahal was held vicariously liable for Steif's actions as she was acting within her role as an investigative reporter for the station. The judge stated that holding media organizations responsible for their reporters' actions would support free and strong investigative journalism. In addition to the privacy damages, Steif was ordered to pay Naveh an additional NIS 25,000 for a Facebook post in which she called him "trash worm."