Netanyahu expressed his irritation at not being allowed to publish photographs of himself with IDF soldiers during the election campaign, despite being defense minister.
By World Israel News Staff
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been serving as defense minister since Avigdor Liberman vacated the position, expressed his disapproval of the attorney general’s legal opinion that he can’t publish photos of himself with Israeli soldiers during the election campaign.
Netanyahu made his views known in a video he posted on Twitter while heading to visit IDF soldiers at a naval base in Haifa. In the video he says to the viewers:
“I would very much like to take you inside with me into the base, but they have some strange guideline – you cannot take pictures with soldiers,” Netanyahu said in the video. “I was also a soldier and a commander in Sayeret Matkal [a special forces unit], … so maybe it’s forbidden to photograph me. I do not know, they have all kinds of strange things.”
Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit based his legal opinion on campaign advertising rules that forbid using uniformed soldiers in campaign materials. They also bar campaigning on Israeli Army bases.
Netanyahu also said in the video: “When I meet you in uniform, I am going to photograph and be photographed with you, and I want to publish the pictures after the elections, because I have more than two million followers – many of them from the U.S., India and Brazil, and I want to be seen together because you are the beautiful and true face of the State of Israel and the Israel Defense Forces. ”
Mandelblit made his decision after a petition from Israel’s Labor party demanding that he issue an order “to cease the use in the election campaign of the Israel Defense Forces and IDF soldiers, contrary to the provisions of the Elections Law.”