According to Section 2 of the Prohibition of Defamation Law, publication can also be oral and must be intended for a person, other than the injured party, and the actual publication did indeed reach a person other than the victim. In our case, the publication was orally in the framework of a radio program that was broadcast on a radio station of defendant 1, and which was intended for the entire audience of the radio balance sheets. Therefore, the publication is intended to reach a broad public who listens to the radio program, other than the respondent.
Of course, the aforesaid does not block the way for the defendants from claiming the existence of the protections set forth in the Prohibition of Defamation Law, which detail aandno liability in respect of the publications that are the subject of the lawsuit.
The obvious conclusion is that the facts described in the statement of claim do indeed establish a cause of action under the Prohibition of Defamation Law. Therefore, if the respondent succeeds in proving his factual version, he will be entitled to the relief sought. However, at this stage, when the case is still in its infancy before the evidence has begun, the respondent is not required to prove his version and the court must assume that the facts described in the statement of claim are correct, for the purpose of determining the existence of a prima facie cause of action. Civil Appeal 7096/11 Komem v. Rozovsky (published in Nevo, August 28, 2012) held as follows:
"In the framework of the hearing of summary dismissal, when the existence of a cause of action is examined, it must be assumed that all the facts claimed by the plaintiffs are correct. Therefore, and without expressing a position on the question of whether the claims against some of the applicants were made in a 'casual' and 'comprehensive' manner, there is no reason to dismiss the claim in limine" (paragraph 8 of the judgment; emphasis added).
It has not escaped my sight that some of the factual claims detailed in the statement of claim were made in a comprehensive manner. However, a perusal of the statement of claim reveals that the respondent specifies in paragraphs 3-4 the content of the alleged publications, even though these publications are not presented in their written and worded manner. In my opinion, there is no obligation to quote in the statement of claim everything that was stated in the publications that are the subject of the hearing, since according to the provisions of the SDA Regulations, the statement of claim is supposed to contain only the "material facts" that establish the cause of action, and the plaintiff is not required to attach to the statement of claim evidence to prove his claims.