Netanyahu's son slammed for support for murderer of Palestinian Dawabsheh family

Yair Netanyahu, the son of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has caused outrage after calling the conviction of an Israeli settler for the triple murder of a Palestinian family a "disgrace" and sharing a crowdfunding page for his legal support on Monday.

The 29-year-old's tweets, in defence of Amiram Ben Uliel who was found guilty of the murders, which included a baby, were labelled as "surreal" by critics.

The plee for funds was posted as he accompanied his father to Washington for the signing of a normalisation deal with the UAE.

Ben Uliel was handed three life sentences plus twenty years on Monday following his conviction over the killing of three members of the Dawabsheh family - Saad, Riham, and their 18-month-old son Ali - in an arson attack on their home in 2015.

The only survivor from the attack was the couple's eldest son Ahmed, who was five-years-old at the time. He suffered from severe burns and scarring.

Yair Netanyahu retweeted a link to a far-right legal aid group named Honenu, which supports, what they describe as "soldiers and civilians who find themselves in legal entanglements, due to defending themselves against Arab aggression, or due to their love for Israel."

Twitter Post

Honenu is fundraising in order to continue Ben Uliel's legal battle.

In response to criticism for his tweet, Yair said that the conviction was disgraceful and lacked evidence, adding that Ben Uliel’s confessions were obtained by the Israeli security services through "physical torture in the most medieval fashion you can imagine".

Journalist Noga Tarnopolsky tweeted in response to Netanyahu's posts: "Nauseating, even for Yair."

The prime minister's son is no stranger to inflaming controversy online due to his outsized Twitter presence and openly antagonistic posts and rants.

In March, he was sued 250,000 shekels (£55,665) for libel and slander and ordered to pay another 37,000 shekels (£8,238) in legal costs, after posting false stories about journalist Avi Alkalay, whose news site had been covering the corruption scandal.

He currently has four defamation legal cases pending against him.

Netanyahu junior regularly takes to the social media to express his anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim views, tweeting last year that Palestine has never existed because there is "no P in Arabic". In another instance he said that he'd "prefer" for all Muslims to leave Israel.

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