Former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's son, Yair, allegedly sold items belonging to his father, such as a Barcelona Football Club t-shirt given to him by the team, on a secondhand shopping website, according to "The Hottest Place in Hell," an independent Israeli investigative reporting website.
In 2013, the elder Netanyahu welcomed Barcelona to Israel. The team gifted him and then-president Shimon Peres soccer jerseys that had the number 13 on them, a traditionally lucky number in Judaism, along with "Peace Tour" written in place of where the name typically goes.
Several people were gifted identical shirts of this type.
Netanyahu re:gifting
In 2018, an identical jersey went on sale on Ad, an Israeli secondhand sales website. The item was described as "an original FC Barcelona soccer jersey. The shirt is marked with a tag marking it as an original. The shirt is dry fit and sweat-resistant."
The shirt was being sold off by "Boaz" for NIS 200. However, according to "The Hottest Place in Hell"'s Yossi Dorfman, the phone number listed as the seller was actually confirmed to be that of Yair Netanyahu.
The report found other items listed under the same seller, including:
- Another FC Barcelona shirt
- An FC Barcelona watch
- A Club Atlético Boca Juniors shirt
- A Liverpool shirt
- And several other items
Netanyahu family and gifts
While there is no legal issue with Yair Netanyahu selling items online, the "Peace Tour" Barcelona shirt is a gift and would have therefore been reviewed by the Gift Committee, which had convened in 2021 and demanded that the elder Netanyahu return numerous gifted items to the state.
"I am tired of the media's crazy and hypocritical pursuit of the Netanyahu family."
Yair Netanyahu
The committee at the time said that another list would be released later of items that need to be returned at a value of less than NIS 300, according to the report. The jersey was, supposedly, included in that value group.
In response to the report, the younger Netanyahu said that this was "a simple t-shirt that the Gift Committee determined as 'insignificant' at a value of less than NIS 300."
" he said.
"The Netanyahu family is being persecuted to hell and back," he added, while the media "will remain silent when a coup d'état takes place or fascist personal laws are enacted."