Attorney Itamar Ben-Gvir (Jewish Power) on Sunday morning submitted a $70,000 defamation lawsuit to the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court against MK Avigdor Liberman (Israel Beiteinu) after the latter had not apologized for a comment he made in a radio interview on Friday that he wondered if Ben-Gvir might not be a “a kind of ‘Champagne,” a code name used for an agent-provocateur of the Jewish section of the Shin Bet who encouraged the Rabin murder.
Ben-Gvir warned Liberman at the time that if he did not apologize in 48 hours, he face a defamation lawsuit.
The indictment cites Judge Oded Shaham, who ruled in favor of Ben-Gvir in a similar case some 20 years ago, when another person called Ben-Gvir “a Shin Bet agent.”
Shaham ruled that although being a Shin Bet agent may not be defamatory to some, the fact that in Ben-Gvir’s circle this constitutes defamation, and a very serious one at that, justifies punishment by the court.
Ben-Gvir’s lawsuit also calls that Liberman’s suggestion ridiculous, seeing as the right-wing attorney was fighting the torture of Jewish youths in dungeons run by representatives of the coalition government of which Liberman was a member at the time.
Ben-Gvir said this morning, “I understand that Avigdor Liberman is under pressure. He watches the polls, realizes that he does not pass the threshold vote, and understands that his voters are flocking to the Right-Wing Union parties.”
“But there are things that should not be said,” Ben-Gvir continued. To hint that I am a Shin Bet agent is more serious than to argue that Liberman is a KGB agent. [And so] this morning I filed a lawsuit in the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court for a quarter of a million shekels against Liberman. There are those who not only speak but also do. He slandered – let him pay.”
Of course, both the 48-hour for a Liberman apology and the reference to saying vs. doing are not-so-subtle references to Liberman’s notorious promise to eliminate Ismail Haniyeh within 24 hours of Liberman’s becoming defense minister.
We checked the website Is Ismail Haniyeh Dead Yet? and discovered that over the past 2 years, 5 months, 2 Weeks, 4 days, 21 hours, 51 minutes and 29 seconds, during which Liberman became defense minister and left office to disappear from Israel’s politics in the threshold sinkhole of his own doing – Ismail Haniyeh has sadly remained alive.
Is anyone working on a kickstart campaign for Liberman to raise the quarter million shekels he’s going to owe Ben-Gvir?