The publication that is the subject of the lawsuit does not constitute defamation against the plaintiff, since the plaintiff testified in an interview that he supports calls for civil war. The plaintiff did not warn of civil war from a position that rejects it, but rather against the coming of a justified civil war if the judicial reform is not stopped, while expressing encouragement and full understanding of the situation in which one side of the barricade will hold a firearm against the other. The plaintiff's glorious past does not grant him immunity from harsh criticism for his support of personalities and statements that called for civil war, with firearms, hand in hand with each other.
In relation to the first publication, the defendant repeated the plaintiff's statement, "In war, unpleasant things happen, including the use of weapons." The defendant's words are a direct continuation of the plaintiff's words regarding civil war and his response to Adv. Hodak's explicit threats against him and his son. The reasonable viewer will understand that the words were made out of a storm of intense emotions and feelings of anxiety on the part of the defendant for himself and his family.
With regard to the second publication - in view of the fact that Adv. Hodak and Ze'ev Raz were arrested and interrogated by the police for their statements, and in view of the fact that the plaintiff supported their statements, the defendant was entitled to wonder aloud why the Israel Police did not arrest the plaintiff for questioning.
The defendant's words, "Who gave you this right to threaten me? I feel afraid of you, you are a person who threatened me, my children, my family" are a natural and normal reaction of the defendant against the background described above and against the background of his being identified with the supporters of the judicial reform - the "enemy" in the civil war that the plaintiff was supporting.
With regard to the third publication, the defendant's statement that the plaintiff "wants to kill us" (supporters of the reform) is anchored in the plaintiff's words in the interview, and in any case it is a reasonable conclusion from his words. The rule provides protection to the conclusion published by the defendant, if the reasonable reader (in our case, the reasonable observer) understands from the publication that the advertiser deduced this, and not that the fact is presented as absolute. The defendant invited the viewers to judge, on the basis of the plaintiff's interview, whether his words were true or not.