Yair Golan files $843,000 suit against Sara Netanyahu over Oct. 7 conspiracy theory

Yair Golan, chair of the left-wing Democrats party, announces that he has filed a NIS 2.55 million ($843,000) defamation and damages lawsuit against Sara Netanyahu, after the prime minister’s wife insinuated without evidence that he had advance knowledge of the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, onslaught.

Golan, a former IDF deputy chief of staff, drew praise for his actions on the day of the attack, when he drove to the site of the Nova music festival massacre and rescued people. But in a recent interview with the pro-government Channel 14, the prime minister’s wife intimated that he had prior knowledge of the attack, saying he was “dressed and ready at a very, very early hour when others didn’t know.” She also appeared to question whether he had in fact fought on October 7.

“When you’re a military man of such high rank, claiming that you fought on October 7, already early in the morning you were there, already dressed and ready at a very, very early hour when others didn’t know, such as the prime minister,” she said directly after talking about Golan in the interview, which aired on August 31, adding sarcastically: “Who is the prime minister anyway to know that a war is breaking out? Why let him know?”

Golan then sent her a warning letter demanding that she retract and apologize for those comments and make a substantial donation to survivors of the Nova music festival massacre. She did not do so.

Golan has repeatedly said he headed south at around 8 a.m., roughly an hour and a half after the attack began. He says he drove to the site of the Nova massacre on his own initiative.

“This lawsuit is not only about my good name or what I did on October 7. It is a civil indictment by an entire political camp against a government that has lost all restraint,” Golan says in a statement announcing the filing.

He accuses the prime minister — who has never taken direct responsibility or apologized for the failures surrounding the October 7 attack — and his family of seeking to “escape responsibility for the worst failure in the country’s history” by trying to “rewrite history and turn those who rushed into the inferno to save lives into traitors.”

The suit also seeks civil damages on the grounds that Sara Netanyahu’s remarks constituted incitement to violence. Golan’s party says intelligence officials issued concrete warnings of threats against him following the interview, saying that online incitement surged 450 percent.

Police recently raised Golan’s threat level, according to the Democrats, but he has yet to receive state-funded protection. A government advisory panel postponed a decision on his security request despite recommending protection for fellow opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot, whom police assessed as facing the same threat level.