Netanyahu at Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee hearing
Netanyahu at Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee hearingMiriam Alster/Flash90

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu filed a NIS 200,000 lawsuit against journalist Ben Caspit for libel following his latest column in the Maariv newspaper.

Netanyahu called Caspit's article "Blatant and severe slander ... slander, lies and libel without foundation."

In addition to Caspit, the publisher and controlling shareholder of the newspaper Eli Azur, the editor of the newspaper Doron Cohen, and the Ma'ariv printing company are also named in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit relates to a section of Caspit's column last weekend that dealt with the fact that among the members of the small team that will assist the Attorney General in deciding on the investigations against Netanyahu are two of the deputy Attorney Generals, Ron Nizri and Amit Merari.

"We'll get back to Nizri later," Caspi wrote. "Marari is the deputy attorney general for criminal affairs, but also the partner of the Knesset's legal advisor, attorney Eyal Yinon."

"Why is it interesting?" said Caspit, "Oh, because recently Yinon received a NIS 6 million bonus at the last moment before retiring from his position. The process of granting him this benefit (equating his retirement bonus to those of judges) was led and pushed by Mickey Zohar, one of the more effective emissaries of the prime minister."

"All in all it makes sense. It's lucky that we know that Yinon is an honest man and his partner as well, apparently. What would have happened here if it had been the other way around: after all, these people demanded the immediate disqualification of the investigations of the prime minister, since they were 'contaminated' by the fact that several of the police officers suspected that people were following them."

Advocate Navot Tel-Zur, who recently joined the defense team of Netanyahu, Adv. Tal Shapira and Adv. Meirav Bar-Zik, are representing Netanyahu.

"Ben Caspit's morbid obsession will cost him ... dearly. If Ben Caspit cared a little more for his family instead of chasing my family, maybe we would be spared such unfortunate cases," Netanyahu wrote on his Twitter account.