Yair Golan warns Sara Netanyahu of $825,000 suit for airing Oct. 7 conspiracy theory

The Democrats leader Yair Golan on Tuesday sent a warning letter ahead of legal action to Sara Netanyahu, accusing the prime minister’s wife of libel after she insinuated without evidence that the left-wing politician had advance notice of the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, onslaught.

Golan warned that should she fail to retract her comments, which “amount to the most serious libel,” apologize, and make a substantial donation to the Nova music festival’s survivors, he will file a suit for NIS 2.5 million ($825,000) in damages.

Golan, a former deputy IDF chief of staff, drove to the site of the Nova massacre on the morning of October 7 and rescued multiple people, later earning praise for his actions.

He has said multiple times that he headed south around 8 a.m., an hour and a half after the attack began.

Sara Netanyahu, in an interview with the pro-government Channel 14 aired Monday, pushed a baseless conspiracy theory that Golan’s prompt response to the massacre showed he had advance warning of it.

“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.

She then alluded to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that defense officials hadn’t woken him on the morning of the massacre, and that had he been alerted sooner, the attack would have been averted, adding sarcastically, “Who is the prime minister anyway to know that a war is breaking out? Why let him know?”

“Sara Netanyahu spread a false conspiracy in an attempt to rewrite October 7, turning those who went out to save lives into traitors and those who abandoned Israel’s security into victims,” Golan wrote on X on Tuesday.

“We will not allow them to erase the truth and the heroism of the fighters, the volunteers, and the civilians who stepped up when the government collapsed,” he added. “We will establish a state commission of inquiry, reveal the truth and find those responsible for the failure.”

In response, Netanyahu’s wife refused to apologize and accused Golan of “wild lies” and distorting her words. She similarly gave him a 48-hour window to retract his claims and make a donation to a pre-military preparatory academy or be sued for NIS 1 million ($330,000)

The wife of a prime minister does not have legal immunity.

Golan’s party, The Democrats, also slammed her remark in a post on X, saying it “forcefully condemns the slanderous and lying words of Sara Netanyahu this evening on Channel 14.”

“Spreading conspiracies against General Yair Golan, and tarring his heroism on October 7, crosses a red line bordering on insanity,” the party said. “While [Benjamin] Netanyahu rushed to put on makeup and search for excuses, Yair Golan charged forward and saved lives. The facts won’t change, no matter how much the Netanyahu family and Channel 14 try to rewrite them.”

Sara Netanyahu is not the first member of her immediate family to spread conspiracy theories about October 7. The Netanyahus’ adult son Yair suggested there was treason in the lead-up to the attack, prompting the prime minister to reportedly tell lawmakers that while “there was a serious intelligence failure” ahead of the October 7 attack, “there was no treason.”

Netanyahu has refrained from publicly dispelling such conspiracy theories.

When asked directly about the latter theory during the Channel 14 interview, Sara Netanyahu didn’t rule it out as her husband did.

“I don’t want to talk. I don’t know. There should be a real commission of inquiry,” she said, condemning the High Court of Justice’s order to halt the state comptroller’s investigation and reiterating the Netanyahus’ rejection of a state commission of inquiry, which she alleged would have had “predetermined conclusions.”

Almost three years after the massacre, the government is yet to form any sort of inquiry into the various failures leading up to and surrounding the attack.

Her comments were met with criticism from other opposition leaders, who praised Golan’s service to the country.

Yashar party chief Gadi Eisenkot, a former IDF chief of staff and the premier’s main rival in the upcoming election, said on X: “The outrageous conspiracy theory of treason, which has absolutely no factual basis and which the prime minister’s wife spread last night, is intended solely to fan hatred and perpetuate the Netanyahu government, whose only way of ruling is to divide.”

Numerous reports over the years have indicated that Sara Netanyahu wields outsize influence over her husband’s decision-making on policy matters and on appointments.

In 2024, Golan started suing people who peddled unfounded conspiracy theories that he had been involved in espionage and in planning the Hamas invasion, including Likud politicians and others linked to the ruling party.