News 12 Drops $3 Million Libel Suit Against Eli Tzipori After Mediation

News 12 and media commentator Eli Tzipori reached a mediation deal that ended the channel’s 3 million shekel defamation lawsuit, filed in late 2024. The agreement was approved by the court and negotiated with the help of mediator attorney Shira Brik-Haimovitz.

Under the settlement, Tzipori will not pay any compensation. In return, he signed a clarification stating that he “reaffirms that he does not believe the plaintiff is really Al Jazeera or has any connection to Al Jazeera,” and he committed to stop using the insult “Al Jazeera 12.” He was not required to apologize for past use of the term or delete hundreds of earlier posts that included it.

After the ruling, both sides quickly claimed victory on social media. News 12 portrayed Tzipori’s pledge to stop using the nickname as an important achievement, while Tzipori celebrated that he paid no damages and stressed that the restriction applied only to that specific phrase. He then posted new insults against the channel, calling it, among other things, a “defamation channel,” “incitement,” “lies,” “poison,” “scoundrels,” “bully,” and “frauds.”

The original suit was filed by News 12 attorneys Dr. Yisgav Nakdimon, Dikla Biran and Noy Hadar after Tzipori used the “Al Jazeera 12” phrase hundreds of times. The channel argued the comparison to the Qatari network was false and gravely defamatory. Tzipori, represented by attorney Ohad Machrez, said it was a censorious lawsuit and argued the phrase was only satirical and humorous, comparing it to the comedy show Eretz Nehederet.

The settlement says Tzipori’s commitment was made “as an act beyond the letter of the law, and without any admission of the plaintiff’s claims.” He also said the change came after he was approached in a personal tone during mediation, and that had he been addressed that way before the lawsuit, he would have stopped using the phrase then. The case is one part of a wider legal fight around Tzipori, who is also facing a 200,000 shekel damages order to reporter Avishai Grinzig, a dismissed defamation suit against former prosecutor Yehuda Shpr, civil claims totaling millions of shekels, and a criminal indictment for witness harassment over his posts about Hadas Klein.