Video pushes Yair Netanyahu as a candidate in upcoming elections

A campaign-style video posted on Sunday presents Yair Netanyahu, the controversial son of the prime minister, as a candidate for the upcoming elections, calling him “an Israeli patriot against the left.”

It was not clear who was behind the video, but sources close to Yair Netanyahu told the Actualic news website that he was “not familiar with the film or connected to it in any way.”

Nevertheless, the clip sparked speculation that he may be planning to follow his father into politics.

National elections will be held April 9, with many parties, including Likud, holding primaries before.

The 30-second video opens with the Israeli flag flying in front of the Western Wall, followed by a montage of pictures of Yair Netanyahu, mostly with Benjamin Netanyahu, and the caption “An Israeli patriot against the left.”

It then features Donald Trump saying “Terrific leader, great for Israel” — thereby appearing to make the US president’s endorsement, actually given to Benjamin Netanyahu, about Yair.

It then shows a series of pictures of Yair Netanyahu meeting with Trump, his daughter Ivanka, Prince William and Fox News host Sean Hannity, with the caption “Because of his experience.”

That is followed by a scene of the younger Netanyahu meeting with Holocaust survivors, captioned “Because of his soul.”

The clip ends with an endorsement from the prime minister saying: “Yair is a very aggressive Israeli patriot,” It’s not clear in what context the statement was made.

Yair Netanyahu has previously vowed not to follow his father into politics.

“I so admire and appreciate the sacrifice you make for the sake of the Land of Israel and the people of Israel,” Netanyahu told his father in 2017 at a party for the prime minister’s 68th birthday, “As someone who will never go into politics, it’s an amazing thing to see.”

However, he has frequently been in the news in recent months.

In December he was temporarily barred from Facebook for posting that he would prefer if all Muslims left Israel:

“There will not be peace here until:
1. All the Jews leave the land of Israel.
2. All the Muslims leave the land of Israel.
I prefer the second option,” he wrote.

In a subsequent post he added: “Do you know where there are no terror attacks? In Iceland and Japan. Coincidentally there’s also no Muslim population there.”

The previous week, he posted on Facebook that the press, as well as left-wing NGOs and politicians, are “traitors.” His father disavowed the comment.

Yair Netanyahu had previously drawn media criticism for crude social media posts and a life of excess at public expense, including an incident last year when recordings made during a night of debauchery in Tel Aviv strip clubs were revealed.

In the recordings Yair Netanyahu and his friends can be heard discussing the thousands of shekels they paid for private dances that evening. In comments evidently made in jest while he was likely inebriated, Netanyahu Junior also offered his friends sexual favors, in exchange for money, from a woman with whom he was in an intimate relationship.

He has also posted and then deleted an apparently anti-Semitic caricature of liberal Jewish financier George Soros.