JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday defended his son over drunken remarks made between visits to strip clubs that drew criticism for being derogatory of women.
The recording, aired late on Monday by Israeli Hadashot News, was made in 2015 while Netanyahu’s son, Yair, toured strip clubs in Tel Aviv while partying with two friends.
In it, Yair Netanyahu and his friends are heard teasing each other on who has paid for what during their night out on the town. When one of the friends tells Yair he spotted him 400 Shekels (about $115), Yair says: “No, that was for the hooker.”
In other portions of the recording, Yair offers “to arrange” an ex-girlfriend for his friend in order to settle his debts, appears to rate strippers’ skills and appearances and is embarrassed by a late-night phone-call from his mother.
Yair issued a statement in which he said the news report was salacious, the recording illegal and that he was inebriated at the time.
“I said ridiculous things about women and about other people, which should not have been said. These things do not represent me, the values I was raised on and what I believe in. I regret these and apologize to anyone hurt by them,” said the statement, quoted in Israeli media.
The recording has made headlines in Israel, where Yair was criticized for using a state-funded car and driver to take him around strip clubs along with his state-funded security guard.
“This is terrible moral bankruptcy. Debased, disgusting, rude behavior objectifying women while accompanied by a car and security funded by the state,” opposition lawmaker Shelly Yachimovich said on Facebook.
Speaking with reporters in Jerusalem on Tuesday, the prime minister said his son was right to apologize. “My wife and I raised our children to respect any person and to respect all women,” Netanyahu said.
One of the friends Netanyahu was with is the son of an Israeli businessman, Kobi Maimon, who has a stake in Israel’s offshore natural gas fields. At the time of the recording Netanyahu’s government was finalizing a deal for their development.
“Bro, my dad just arranged $20 billion for your dad and you can’t spot me 400 Shekels?” Yair told his friend jokingly as laughter was heard.
In a written response issued to the report on Monday, Netanyahu said he was unaware of his son’s friendship with Maimon and that it had no bearing on the gas deal, nor did Yair have any knowledge of it.
He called the report wicked gossip and said the media was hounding his family as part of a campaign against his right-wing government.
Netanyahu, who has a sometimes adversarial relationship with Israeli media, is under police investigation for alleged corruption in two criminal cases. He denies wrongdoing.
The 26-year-old Yair Netanyahu has found himself the center of controversy in the past.
In September, he drew anger in Israel and abroad for posting a cartoon using what the Anti-Defamation League, which monitors anti-Semitism worldwide, described as anti-Semitic imagery in a Facebook post mocking some of his father’s critics.
In August, he made another headline-grabbing post after a protester was killed during a white nationalist rally in the US state of Virginia, that suggested hard-left organizations pose more of a danger than neo-Nazi groups.
Netanyahu defends son taped illicitly outside strip club
Netanyahu defends son taped illicitly outside strip club
In major policy shift on Syria, UN Security Council lifts sanctions on Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham
- Move reflects evolving Syrian political landscape in the post-Assad era, ending a global freeze on assets, travel ban and arms embargo
NEW YORK CITY: The UN Security Council on Friday removed Al-Nusra Front, the militant group that evolved into Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, from its so-called Daesh and Al-Qaeda Sanctions List.
The move signals a major shift in international policy toward Syria’s evolving political landscape in the post-Assad era, and ends a global freeze on assets, travel ban and arms embargo that have been imposed on the group since 2014.
Al-Nusra Front and Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham were led by Ahmad Al-Sharaa, formerly Abu Mohammed Al-Julani, who is now Syria’s president and was a leading figure in the offensive that toppled the Assad regime.
The consensus decision by the Security Council’s sanctions committee was announced by the UK, which holds the presidency of the Security Council this month and was acting in the absence of the chair of the committee. It followed a request by the new Syrian authorities to delist “Al-Nusrah Front for the People of the Levant.”
The decision means measures that were applied to Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham under Security Council Resolution 2734, adopted in 2024, no longer apply. As a result, UN member states are notrequired to freeze the group’s funds, restrict the movement of its representatives, or block the supply or transfer of arms and related materiel.
Al-Nusra Front was added to the sanctions list for its ties to Al-Qaeda and involvement in the financing and execution of militant activities during the war in Syria. The UN initially continued to treat the group’s successor organization, Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, as a listed alias.
Al-Sharaa has said the group severed all prior transnational jihadist links and is now solely focused on local Syrian matters.
