Leftwing activated Haim Shadmi and two other individuals were under police interrogation at the special crime unit Lahav 433 Friday morning, on suspicion of incitement and threats against Prime Minister Netanyahu’s son Yair. The interrogations follow a complaint filed by Yair Netanyahu on Friday through his attorneys, accusing Shadmi et al of threatening to harm him.
The complaint included videos documenting protesters speaking at Netanyahu Jr., uttering threats. In one such video, Shadmi says to Yair Netanyahu: “One day you will find yourself without your body guards and then …”
A small gathering of protesters has assembled in front of the Lahav 433 headquarters in Lod. One Shadmi supporter posted on Facebook: “I have seen with my own eyes the mechanism of intimidation used against moral justice fighters like Haim Shadmi. Today they investigate him, but tomorrow it will be any one of us if we don’t do something.”
On Wednesday, Brig. Gen. David Buani, chief of investigations at Israel Police, arrived at the prime minister’s residence in Jerusalem to receive a formal complaint from Prime Minister Netanyahu about the threats against his son. In the complaint, the prime minister claimed that “this is violence that crosses red lines. These threats must not be ignored.”
The PM’s complaint was filed after Shadmi participated in a small leftwing demonstration in front of the prime minister’s residence hurled insults and threats at Yair Netanyahu. In one video, Shadmi mimes how he would throw a Molotov cocktail at Yair Netanyahu. That video was shot in a dark street without an audience, and it’s pretty clear that Shadmi was thoroughly inebriated at the time.
Yair Netanyahu used to work for Shurat HaDim as social media director, but stepped down following his attack on President Reuven Rivlin for the latter’s condemnation of Netanyahu Sr.’s attacks on Israeli Arabs (Shurat HaDin said they asked him to take a leave, Yair insists it was his own idea). In December 2018, Netanyahu Jr. was suspended from Facebook for 24 hours for posting that “There will never be peace with those monsters in the form of men that have called themselves ‘Palestinians’ since 1964.”
In January 2018, Yair Netanyahu became the most unpopular young man in Israel after a recording of his ride that followed a visit with friends to a Tel Aviv strip club had been leaked. One of the young men in the back seat with Yair was the son of a billionaire who had just signed a deal with Yair’s dad to extract natural gas off Israel’s shore. Yair filed a lawsuit for $272,000 against his driver, who recorded and sold the tape to the media. In the end, the chauffeur had to pay only about $8,500 and apologize. But Most Israelis to this day think about that wild and crazy Friday night ride when they think about Yair Netanyahu.
There’s no doubt Haim Shadmi is angry at Yair Netanyahu and hates him with a passion, but, being the skinny drink of water that he is, it’s safe to say he is mostly bark and hardly any bite. Still, if you’re stupid enough to attack one of the most litigious young men in Israel, you should expect to face some music.