Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's comical campaign video, in which he portrays his political opponents as unruly kindergarten children, was shot down on Tuesday by judge Salim Joubran, chairperson of the Central Elections Committee.
Joubran accepted the petitions submitted by the Movement for Quality Government in Israel (MQG) and Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid party.
MQG and Yesh Atid petitioned to remove the video, which was released earlier this week and produced by Netanyahu's Likud party as part of its campaign for the upcoming March 17 elections.
According to Joubran, in the clip "children in a kindergarten are staged behaving badly, with the prime minister appearing in the video in the role of a kindergarten teacher trying to control order and warn the wild children over their behavior, as the children are called by the names of other party heads."
The children include those called after Lapid, Labor-Hatnua co-chair Tzipi Livni, Jewish Home chairman Naftali Bennett, and Yisrael Beytenu head Avigdor Liberman referenced by his name Ivet.
Joubran order Likud to pay the legal expenses of the petitioners, a total of 5,000 shekels (nearly $1,300), and likewise ordered that the video not be broadcast again.
In the video, the behavior of the children and Netanyahu's reprimands hint that Lapid is breaking Israel's economy, that Liberman is corrupt, Bennett is claiming fame for playing with tanks, and Livni is running from party to party.
The clip evoked angry responses from the politicians spoofed in it.