Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz files a NIS 500,000 ($142,000) libel lawsuit against a US-based Israeli woman who accused the would-be prime minister of exposing himself to her some 40 years ago, when she was 14 and he was 17.
Gantz’s Blue and White party says Gantz filed the suit against Nava Jacobs at the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court in response to her accusation of sexual misconduct that is “completely false from start to finish.”
Israel Resilience party chairman Benny Gantz speaks at the 55th Munich Security Conference in southern Germany, February 17, 2019. (Thomas Kienzle/AFP)
“The plaintiff does not remember the accuser, and in any case, the fantastical story she invented in her head never happened,” the party says in a statement.
The suit also claims that Jacobs “acted at the behest of, or with the help of, political parties who seek to humiliate and discredit Gantz.”
Earlier today, the Walla news site reported that Culture Minister Miri Regev’s office was in contact with Jacobs weeks before she made the allegation against Gantz in a public Facebook post yesterday.
According to the report, members of Regev’s staff helped Jacobs approach a journalist with the story last month. Jacobs and Regev’s office confirmed the report.
Regev’s Likud party is in close competition with Gantz’s Blue and White party in the polls, with one of the two factions expected to win the upcoming elections.
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