I will illustrate this position by referring to another case in which a judgment was recently given in this court in a defamation suit. There, the plaintiff, who was employed in the Prime Minister's Office and also at his official residence, claimed that she had defamed a publication that attributed to her the role of babysitter and caregiver for Mr. Netanyahu's adult children. The claim was accepted, with all due respect, and thus, in the aggregate, it was held:
"[One] component[s] in the publication focused personally on the plaintiff and the nature of her employment. The factual determination that a particular person's field of occupation is childcare does not in itself constitute defamation. This designation does not constitute harm or humiliation. On the contrary: attributing an occupation as a caregiver actually reflects a clear positive meaning. [However,] when someone who has been employed as a public servant in the Prime Minister's Office for decades is accused of not actually engaging in professional work in the government ministry, but rather in the role of a 'caregiver' and a 'babysitter,' then it is a matter of publication that is liable to humiliate that person in the eyes of the public and make him a target of contempt and ridicule, as stated in section 1(1) of the Prohibition of Defamation Law. [The plaintiff] was working at the time of publication in the Prime Minister's Office as a civil servant in various positions [and that] was omitted by the defendant from the publication" (Civil Case (Shalom Tel Aviv-Jaffa) 2212-01-21 Navon v. Lambersky, from the tenth paragraph of the judgment of the Honorable Justice Ron Goldstein (published in the databases on February 18, 2025)).
The circumstances are never the same from case to case, but in both cases the publication - this was one of its main foundations - chose to attribute to the plaintiffs an occupation that does not reflect their practice and the manner in which they seek to build their professional name and reputation. Thus, in my opinion, the publication fulfills the conditions of the first section of the Prohibition of Defamation Law.
- The defendant's publications seem to have met each of the first three alternatives to the provision of the section: publicity, which is liable to humiliate a person in the eyes of the public, make him a target of contempt or ridicule on their part, humiliate him because of the qualities attributed to him, and harm his position, profession or profession. These things happened even if some of the recipients of the publications, perhaps even all of them, did not genuinely believe that the plaintiffs were engaged in retail sales. In my opinion, it is enough that the readers of the tweets thought that the words written despised the plaintiffs and ridiculed them - And the reactions that also lifted the gauntlet of ridicule and contempt - In order to pass the first sieve of the Prohibition of Defamation Law.
- The False Expression, the Quality of Public Discourse, and the Classification for Defamation
- Taste Monday, which supports the classification of the matter as defamation, is connected to another purpose of the Prohibition of Defamation Law. Her claim was signed by plaintiff 1, Prof. Bressler-Schwartzman In a statement: "I think [the publication] has caused damage to my good name. I think there is no tongue-Bad in'Fresh Eggs' and'Pure and cheap honey' [but] I think that in the way It is charged This is libel in every way. What is said is a lie" (Transcript, p. 54, s. 22. emphasis added). This is where the matter lies.
- In one of the slander affairs, also not long ago, Matza Justice Sohlberg In other words: "A word of lies shall not be set before my eyes" (Psalm 110) 7). This statement reflected a perception of the laws of defamation - These, in addition to their fundamental goal of protecting a person's good name, also seek to improve the quality of the discourse, and in particular of the public discourse. In the words of Justice Sohlberg, this is "A view that sees defamation law as an effective tool that can contribute to public discourse" (Civil Appeal Authority 6557/20 Channel 10 above, in paragraph 56 of his judgment).
The idea that the law is intended to play a role in improving the quality of public discourse has already been raised in court rulings in the past (High Court of Justice 10203/03 "The National Census", supra, at p. 797 (Justice Levy)). In his most recent ruling, Justice Sohlberg dealt individually with defamation laws and their view as such, which are intended to remove from the discourse expressions of falsehood. This position was drawn from a 2019 essay by Professors Hemel and Porat (Porat) (Daniel Hemel & Ariel Porat, Free Speech and Cheap Talk, 11 J. Legal Analysis 46 (2019)). At the starting point for their essay, the learned authors determined that a "quality" discourse is one in which the rate of truth exceeds the rate of falsehoods. The contribution of defamation laws to the quality of discourse will therefore be measured by the extent to which they help to reduce the scope of the false expression that is expressed within the framework of the discourse and to replace it with true expressions.