Election Committee Head Rejects Petitions Against Netanyahu Videos

The Chairman of the Central Elections Committee, Judge Noam Sohlberg, on Friday dismissed several petitions concerning videos featuring Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking on various occasions. The petitions questioned the publication of these videos on both the Prime Minister's Office's official accounts and Netanyahu's personal political accounts.

According to a statement from the Elections Committee spokesperson, the videos in question were originally published simultaneously on the Prime Minister's Office's official platforms and on accounts associated with Netanyahu's personal and political activities. During the hearing, some videos were removed from the personal political accounts. In one instance, Sohlberg ordered Netanyahu to remove a video from his accounts on the "Srugim News" network.

Sohlberg ruled that the videos do not constitute election propaganda when published on official accounts, thereby rejecting the claim that their dissemination on government platforms constituted prohibited election propaganda under the examined circumstances. The committee's statement also noted that one video remained published on Netanyahu's personal political accounts, and this, too, was deemed not to be election propaganda.

These decisions address a recurring issue during election periods: the boundary between the official state activities of a sitting prime minister and activities of a political or propaganda nature. In this case, after reviewing the videos and their publication circumstances, the Chairman of the Elections Committee determined that the petitions should not be granted.