GPO endorses controversial Yair Netanyahu tweet

In the tweet, the prime minister’s son told a hypothetical story in order to criticize the top-rated newscast on N12 that he often compares to Al Jazeera.

Yair Netanyahu arrives at court, December 10th, 2018 (photo credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI/ MAARIV)
Yair Netanyahu arrives at court, December 10th, 2018
(photo credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI/ MAARIV)
The Government Press Office raised eyebrows on Monday when it affirmed a controversial tweet by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son, Yair.

In the tweet, the prime minister’s son told a hypothetical story in order to criticize the top-rated newscast on N12 that he often compares to Al Jazeera.
“Four left anarchists block a street, grab a four-year-old girl passing by and murder her in a lynching,” Yair Netanyahu tweeted. “[Police reporter] Moshe Nussbaum on N12: ‘[anchorwoman] Yonit [Levy] this is indeed a justified rally of the people in which thousands of Israelis from across the political spectrum expressed their rightful pain.”
In a subsequent tweet, Netanyahu wrote that his tweet was “satirical, of course.”
A spokesman for opposition leader Yair Lapid, Yair Zivan, highlighted on his own Twitter feed that the GPO had clicked like on Netanyahu’s tweet.

“Why is the GPO liking a political, anti-media tweet, from the prime minister’s son?” Zivan wrote.
"This was an honest mistake done by one of the GPO staff," GPO director Nitzan Chen told The Jerusalem Post. "The GPO is a professional and non-political body dedicated to servicing the local and foreign press. The GPO will take extensive steps to ensure such a mistake will not take place again."