Yair Netanyahu, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son, was embroiled in a new scandal Friday after posting a photo and details a young woman who took a selfie photo with Blue and White party chief Benny Gantz, leading her to suffer online harassment and claims of her supposed sexual exploits with Gantz by supporters of Netanyahu and his father.
Netanyahu tweeted the photo of Dana Cassidy, asking: “Does anyone know who this is?” He did so after posting unsubstantiated allegations about affairs Gantz supposedly had.
A pro-Likud Twitter account responded with the image of Cassidy with Gantz, with the superimposed caption: “He invited me for tea and it turned me on.” Cassidy said she never wrote anything of the sort.
Dana Cassidy – self-proclaimed ”Animal Liberation Activist”
Cassidy, an animal rights activist, took the photo with Gantz when he visited the farm where she works alongside Blue and White MK Miki Haimovitch.
Cassidy said the reactions to Netanyahu’s post on social media were a form of “mass sexual harassment,” with posters making numerous sexual references to her and her supposed relationship with Gantz.
She said she was later inundated with “a flood” of calls from the media asking her for comment on her purported affair with the politician.
“Smart guy, Yair Netanyahu,” she wrote on Facebook. “He knows the job. He knows he doesn’t need to do much. He can make one post about ‘Benny Gantz’s lovers.’ Then he’ll make another post, with the photo of an anonymous girl… and he won’t write much. He’ll just ask who it is. And that’s it. His supporters will take it from there. His attack dogs will charge. They know the job.
“Is everything allowed Yair?” she wrote. “It didn’t matter to you [if I could handle it]… you did it anyway. You did it because I was just a face that could serve your purpose. Just a face, without a person. A photo without a mom or a dad.”
Cassidy’s father Kobi then wrote an angry Facebook post addressed to the prime minister in which he said Yair “raped my daughter… in broad daylight, in the village square… he raped her honor. While using his status as the prime minister’s son, and as part of a disgusting campaign for you.”
“At his direction and inspired by him, my daughter’s honor was trampled publicly by every malcontent and good-for-nothing,” he said.
“Take a moment and look at Twitter. Look at what they write about her. Read it yourself. If that’s not group rape in broad daylight, I don’t know what is.”
Dana Cassidy on Friday said she would take Netanyahu to court for his actions.
Yair Netanyahu responded by threatening Kobi Cassidy with legal action for libel, and saying he’d demand NIS 1 million ($286,000) in damages if the post was not deleted.
Cassidy responded in another Facebook post: “He’ll slander, he’ll say about anyone he wants whatever he wants but we need to be silent… Bad news Yair. I won’t be silent. Sue Yair, sue.”
Yair Netanyahu has a history of posting incendiary messages on social media and tweets fast and often against those he believes have wronged him and his family.