In wartime, Yair Netanyahu's social media goes 'below the radar'

Yair Netanyahu, the prime minister's provocative and outspoken son who now resides in Florida, has been unusually quiet on social media since war with Hamas broke out on October 7. But an analysis from The Seventh Eye, an Israeli website that focuses on media analysis, found that the younger Netanyahu is still active online, but has shifted his presence from legacy social networks such as Instagram and X, formerly Twitter, to the messaging service Telegram, where his posts draw a smaller and less scrutinized audience, with an average of only about 5,000 viewers per post.

The analysis, titled "Minister of Propaganda," by Itamar Baz, found that Yair Netanyahu continues to post provocative political content aimed at vindicating his father, and it suggests that, as in peacetime, Benjamin Netanyahu's youngest son has played a role in recent weeks in the prime minister's own political messaging. Baz charges that the elder Netanyahu's late-night tweet several weeks ago, insisting that security chiefs had not warned him of any impending Hamas attack, was itself the product of advice by Yair Netanyahu and Sara Netanyahu, the prime minister's wife and the mother of Yair. 

That tweet was roundly criticized, including by other members of Israel's war cabinet who sit alongside Netanyahu. "The prime minister must retract his statement from last night," said Benny Gantz, minister-without-portfolio, at the time. Netanyahu ultimately deleted the tweet and posted an apology, saying, "I made a mistake." A report in the Israeli news site Ynet charged that the whole affair was the product of a discussion within the Netanyahu family following a press conference by the prime minister, during which he was asked about reports that he received warnings of an increased likelihood of war. The Prime Minister's Office denied this account.

Yair's posts focus on rebutting criticisms of his father

The Seventh Eye analyzed Yair Netanyahu's posts on Telegram since the beginning of the war, noting that the majority of them were not original posts, but rather recycled content from other 'channels,' often obscurely sourced themselves. "The overwhelming majority" of the younger Netanyahu's posts, Seventh Eye found, "79%, serve the prime minister's personal goals. Only a minority of them engage in 'state' advocacy, which does not necessarily serve Benjamin Netanyahu, and in fundraising for the home front and the war effort."

"A significant portion" of Yair Netanyahu's Telegram posts, the Seventh Eye report says, "39%, no less - look like an attempt to fend off criticism of his father's hesitation [on how to proceed in the early days of the war]." The report says the younger Netanyahu "shared photos, descriptions and data intended to highlight and often celebrate the destruction and killing in the Gaza Strip, without distinguishing between Hamas targets and civilian casualties." 

"The second prominent theme is the responsibility for the [security failure on October 7], that is, the attempt to remove it from the prime minister," the report goes on to say. "For example, a series of posts denying the publications that Egypt warned Netanyahu that Hamas was planning a murderous attack on the south. About 13% of the posts on the Telegram channel were classified as such."

According to the Seventh Eye analysis, "only a small minority of the posts published on the Telegram channel are those that can be defined as 'information' and not as political propaganda for internal purposes."

Yair Netanyahu has drawn significant, though often veiled, criticism, since the war started, for remaining in Florida while so many of his peers are mobilized for the war. "Reservists [have] quickly showed up for duty," wrote the author of one opinion piece in The Jerusalem Post last week, "which is more than can be said for Netanyahu’s favorite son, Yair, who is sitting the war out on a Florida beach." 

The younger Netanyahu has also been charged in recent weeks with orchestrating political messaging for his father behind the scenes. A WhatsApp group that included both Yair Netanyahu and several of his father's political advisers not only managed the Prime Minister's Twitter account but also orchestrated media campaigns against political adversaries, a report on Channel 12 suggested last week. Nir Hefetz, a controversial journalist who was once an aid to Netanyahu before turning on him to testify in the prime minister's corruption trial, described the alleged WhatsApp group's activities as "reminiscent of Sodom and Gomorrah."