Yair Netanyahu apologizes to Wexner fellowship alumni for ‘pedophile cult’ claim

Yair Netanyahu, the son of former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has apologized to alumni of the Wexner Israel fellowships who sued him for tweets calling them members of a “secret cult,” Zman Yisrael, The Times of Israel’s sister site in Hebrew, reports.

Dozens of prominent alumni filed the libel suit last year, demanding NIS 1 million ($303,000) in compensation for damage to their reputations, due to the younger Netanyahu’s smears against the prestigious leadership program at Harvard University’s Kennedy School.

The program is endowed by the Wexner Foundation, founded by fashion tycoon Leslie Wexner, who has faced scrutiny in recent years due to his close relationship with the late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Yair Netanyahu requested to have the suit dismissed but his claim that a group could not file a libel suit was rejected by the court, and the sides then entered into arbitration.

The lawsuit specifically flagged tweets in which the alumni were called “crazy” cult members seeking to control Israel. In one post, Netanyahu referred to them as a “cult of pedophiles taking control of our country and carrying out a coup over the past four years.” Pressed to remove that post, he later insisted it referred only to Epstein.

As part of the arbitration agreement, Netanyahu issued an apology and promised not to repeat the claims on any platform. He also agreed to take down the social media posts in question and called on others to do likewise.

“Between the months of March and June 2020, I published harmful social media posts about alumni of the Wexner Foundation. After having examined myself and been convinced by the alumni, I believe that my remarks in these posts were incorrect, improper and I find it right to apologize for them,” Netanyahu says in the apology.