Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared in court today to testify in a libel suit he filed against journalists Uri Misgav and Ben Caspit, and attorney Gonen Ben Yitzhak, over claims they published false information about his health and an alleged cancer diagnosis. The hearing was held before Menachem Mizrahi, president of the Central District Magistrate’s Courts, who took over the case despite his main expertise being criminal law.
During the session, the defendants’ lawyer, Adv. Lielich, screened clips of Netanyahu’s speeches that included verbal slips such as “October 9” and “The Holocaust was like 5,000 October 7s,” in an effort to suggest some impairment in his functioning. Mizrahi cut off that line of questioning, saying it was meaningless to confuse dates and adding, “I mix up the date of my wedding.”
Netanyahu rejected the implication that his cognitive sharpness was diminished. “The claim that my cognitive sharpness is in doubt is rejected by my countless appearances,” he said, adding that “a person also mixes up the names of their children.” When asked whether that also meant calling his son “Abraham,” he replied, “Yes. This is a pathetic attempt to smear.”
The cross-examination then turned to media coverage after Netanyahu’s interview with “60 Minutes” last month, where he was described as looking tired and disheveled. Netanyahu said, “They constantly manufacture things in the industry of defamation against me.” Asked whether it offended him, he said no. When pressed on why he had not sued the writer, he answered, “Because I would have had to mortgage the courts.” Mizrahi again intervened near the end, asking to shorten the questioning and quipping that there were people in the courtroom who looked very tired.
