Police aware of harassment claims against MK, but no formal probe

An Israel Police spokesperson on Tuesday denied that a special investigative unit has been established to probe claims that Jewish Home MK Yinon Magal sexually harassed former employees at the Walla internet news organization. The spokesperson said, however, that police are looking into the allegations.

According to the Maariv daily, police are waiting for instructions from the attorney general before they open an investigation.

Earlier, the Haaretz daily newspaper reported that a special unit had been convened to probe the claims.

The paper said it has received several complaints, beyond the two revealed on social media, from workers who said that Magal tried to kiss them at his goodbye party when he left the post of editor at Walla to enter politics.

“I knew it would explode,” one told Haaretz. “He thought he could do anything. He smoked drugs in front of everyone. I saw he was grabbing girls’ butts and trying to kiss them. He didn’t grab anybody by force, like, it was borderline. But I knew this would end him.”

Magal is facing allegations of sexual misconduct after two women came forward Tuesday claiming that he made advances to them while they worked under him at Walla news.

Gender Equality Minister Gila Gamliel (Likud) urged police to open an investigation. “If there is any truth to the statements, a criminal investigation must be opened and MK Magal must be suspended from the Knesset,” she said.

In a Tuesday morning Facebook post, Walla reporter Racheli Rottner said Magal had made lewd comments to her while he served as editor-in-chief of the Israeli news site. Following Rottner, Walla reporter Or Shukran posted hours later accusing Magal of “repeatedly stroking my behind, even after I asked him to stop,” an act that could be considered sexual assault.

Rottner said Magal often suggested she wear “sexier” clothes during news reports, once telling her she should dress “like a librarian from a porn movie.” She said that at the time she took the comments lightly, putting them down to “mischievous Yinon,” but his behavior at his leaving party left her questioning his true intent.

“I didn’t see it coming when he sat down next to me at the party,” she wrote. According to Rottner, Magal sat close to her and whispered, “Tell me, did you feel the tension between us while we worked together? I’ve always felt a sexual tension between us. You didn’t notice?”

Rottner said that when she awkwardly laughed it off, Magal told her, “Now that I’m no longer your boss I can tell you this: whenever we worked together I was horny for you, was looking at you and thinking about your tits and ass. And I would talk to other people about it a lot, how horny your tits and ass make me.”

Magal responded to the charges with his own post on the social media site, in which he said that there are things he did before he was a lawmaker that he would rather not recall.

“I apologize and request forgiveness from anyone I hurt,” he wrote. “That being said, I would expect from a friend that was hurt by me to tell me so and not to turn to shaming on social media.”

In response, Ariel Waysman, Rottner’s husband, wrote on Magal’s Facebook wall: “I would expect a Jewish Home MK not to try to fuck my wife.”

Shukran posted her own response to Magal on Facebook, saying he had brought the “shaming” on himself.

“Someone who repeatedly stroked my behind, even when I asked him not to, asked me if I wanted to join him in the toilet, and a host of other inappropriate things, brings shaming upon themselves,” she wrote.

Party leader Naftali Bennett summoned Magal for a meeting Tuesday night to discuss the allegations. He has, however, stopped short of condemning Magal, whom he personally brought into the party and for whom he reserved a top spot on the electoral list.

“We are still in the clarification stage, and we won’t be taking any steps at the moment,” Bennett told the religious Zionist website Srugim.