Top Tel Aviv University official: ‘Pity’ Netanyahu wasn’t on Iran president’s chopper

The chair of Tel Aviv University’s Executive Council said Sunday he thought it was a “pity” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not onboard the helicopter crash that crashed on Sunday killing Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.

“A pity Netanyahu was not on the helicopter too. One accident can solve many problems for us and the world,” Eli Gelman wrote in a private WhatsApp group, with a link to an article about the accident.

In response to a comment in the group calling for him to delete the post, Gelman doubled down on his comment.

“Considering the amount of damage Netanyahu has been doing to the State of Israel in a process that began 27 years ago (the ‘slip of the tongue’… that cast the left as separate from the Jews) and that is accelerating at an exponential rate — to pray for an accident that will erase this scoundrel from our lives is not excessive at all,” Gelman wrote.

The “slip of the tongue” was a reference to a 1997 hot mic comment by Netanyahu, who was recorded whispering to venerated Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri that “the left has forgotten what it is to be a Jew.”

“Netanyahu meticulously planned and carried out the destruction of the State of Israel, coldly and intentionally,” Gelman wrote.

File: Allen Lew of SingTel (L) and Eli Gelman of Amdocs announcing SingTel LiveLabs @ Israel, March 3, 2013 (Courtesy)

Gelman has served as chairman of the university’s top body since 2018. Before that, he was president and CEO of Israeli tech firm Amdocs from 2010 to 2018, capping off a 30-year career at the company.

In a statement after Gelman’s comments were widely reported in the media, Tel Aviv University said they had been written in a private group chat “without bad thoughts or intentions and were deleted after a very short time.”

“Mr. Gelman regrets this very much and expresses deep regret for the things he wrote. It goes without saying that they were not said as part of his public role,” the statement said.

Raisi, a hardliner long seen as a potential successor to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in a helicopter crash in a mountainous northwestern region near the Azerbaijan border, officials and state media confirmed on Monday.

The charred wreckage of the helicopter that crashed on Sunday carrying Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, along with seven others, was found early on Monday after a 15-hour search in foggy weather conditions.

Times of Israel staff and agencies contributed to this report.