The Supreme Court on Tuesday overturned and overturned the District Court's ruling that the left-wing NGO New Contract (better known as the organizer of the Cryme Ministry demonstrations) must compensate MK Miki Zohar with ten thousand shekels for uttering the words "soldier in Netanyahu's criminal organization" against him.
Justice Noam Sohlberg, who signed the main ruling, ruled that attributing to Netanyahu and his associates affiliation with a criminal organization is absurd to the point of negating that it is defamation. "It seems that these things are far enough from reality that a common person will not read them at face value," the judge reasoned.
Minister Zohar and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "Expression of opinion protected from such lawsuits", photo: Oren Ben Hakon
The affair began in 2021, when Minister Zohar tweeted a post about the storming of Capitol Hill by the pro-Trump mob. In an article published in the Maariv newspaper, the New Contract Association responded that "Mickey Zohar is a senior soldier in Netanyahu's criminal organization who does not stop inciting and lying. The comparison between the violent American right and law-abiding protesters is interrupted even by Topaz Lock's distorted standards. The demonstrators never tried to break into the residence, but it seems that the obsessive preoccupation of Balfour's propaganda machine with demonstrations has spawned a new record of delirium and fake news. Bibi, incitement and lies will not help. We are determined and will not stop until you leave."
Zohar sued the association for NIS 140,<> but was rejected in the Petah Tikva Magistrate's Court. His appeal to the district court was accepted and he was awarded compensation of ten thousand shekels, but as stated, this ruling of the district court was overturned by the Supreme Court.
Supreme Court: The more far-fetched a phrase is, the further it moves away from defamation
In the ruling, joined by Justices Yael Willner and Alex Stein, Justice Sohlberg reasoned that the more absurd an expression is, the further it moves away from defamation, and is not an expression of a statement of fact but of an opinion, even more so when specific actions for which MK Zohar was called a soldier in Netanyahu's criminal organization were not specified.
Solberg also wrote that, "Sailing into particularly extreme areas, sometimes even those far from realism, which could be argued to be an exacerbation of the damage caused by the arrows of the tongue, may actually blunt the factual aspect of things, thereby reinforcing the conclusion that we are dealing with linguistic expression whose meaning does not end with the linguistic instruction of its words, is to reduce the harm inherent in advertising."
Regarding the specific expression used by the left-wing organization, "a soldier in Netanyahu's criminal organization," Justice Sohlberg noted in his ruling that it should not be considered an expression of fact, which could amount to defamation, "but rather an expression of opinion that under certain circumstances is protected from such lawsuits." Justice Sohlberg ruled that since Zohar is a public figure and the association's statement characterized his behavior as a public figure, it has the protection of 'good faith' in the Defamation Law."
In concluding his remarks, the judge noted that "it seems that both the content of the publication and its context both bias towards the conclusion that a person from the community, who is involved in the opinion with people, would understand that the association's response does not convey the factual message that is folded in the plain language, but rather seeks to express a negative opinion about Zohar, through imagery and sailing into the realms of exaggeration and exaggeration."
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