The 26-year-old son of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized on Monday after he made disparaging remarks about women while boasting about his powerful father in comments that sent shock waves through the country.
Yair Netanyahu was reportedly caught on audio speaking with Nir Maimon, the son of gas tycoon Kobi Maimon, outside a Tel Aviv strip club in 2015 following a night of drinking.
They were accompanied by Roman Abramov, an Israeli liaison for Australian billionaire James Packer.
Yair Netanyahu (pictured right) with his father Benjamin Netanyahu in March 2015
The recording catches Yair in an intoxicated state offering to pimp out a woman he’s reportedly dating, telling his pals that he’s broke and needs the money.
‘If you want, I can set you up with some …,’ Yair says, with the audio being censored by the Israel Television News Company due to its offensive nature. ‘I have to fix her up with everyone, I’m paying off my debts,’ he adds.
The Israel Television News Company did not publish the name of the woman to whom Yair was supposedly referring.
Model Lee Levi (pictured) said she was disgusted by Yair’s comments after he said he needed to pimp out his girlfriend becuase he was broke
But Israeli model Lee Levi, who currently lives and works in Los Angeles, later stated in a Facebook that she was ‘gripped’ with ‘disgust’ after hearing the comments and was ‘ashamed’ to have been in a relationship with someone who would use such language about women.
‘The fact that maybe the speakers were at the end of a night of entertainment and alcohol does not detract from the gravity of the comments, the horror and disgust that gripped me when I heard and understood the content of the conversation,’ she wrote.
‘It is important for me to stress that the feeling of disgust didn’t come from the fact that perhaps some of the things were directed at me, but rather from the simple fact that even in today’s world there are those who think and talk in such an offensive and contemptuous way about us, the women.’
The post, written in Hebrew, led to speculation in the Israeli press that she was the woman Yair was alluding to in the audio tape.
Yair, 26, goes on to ask Nir for 400 Shekels (approximately $115), saying he needed the money for a prostitute.
‘My dad set up 20 billion dollars for your dad, and you’re fighting with me about 400 shekels ?’ Yair tells Nir after leaving the strip club, shocked the gas mogul’s son would snicker over lending him the cash.
Yair was reportedly speaking to Nir Maimon, the son of gas tycoon Kobi Maimon (pictured left), outside a Tel Aviv strip club in 2015 following a night of drinking. They two men were also with a liaison for Australian billionaire James Packer (Right)
Yair’s comments quickly raised eyebrows in Israel, as the Prime Minister is currently at the center of multiple police investigations involving bribes and illegal deals.
The elder Maimon is a real estate mogul and a shareholder in Isramco, which owns Israel’s offshore Tamar gas fields, one of the country’s largest natural resource utilities.
In response to the Israel Television News Company’s report published Sunday, Yair released a statement apologizing for his ‘dumb’ comments while blasting the media broadcaster for airing the audio recording.
‘Tonight I watched a disgraceful, yellow-press report that presented illegal recordings of a conversation that took place two and a half years ago. In a night conversation, under the influence of alcohol, I spoke nonsense about women and other things that were better left unsaid,’ Yair Netanyahu said Monday night.
‘These remarks do not reflect who I am, the values on which I was raised and my beliefs. I regret the remarks and apologize if anyone was hurt by them. In addition, the things I said to Maimon were a dumb joke and joking around with him, as anyone could tell. I never took an interest in the natural-gas framework agreement and never had any idea about its details,’ the statement said.
The Prime Minister’s son and his friends ended up at Packer’s apartment at the the luxurious Royal Beach hotel in Tel Aviv (pictured)
The Israeli prime minister earlier in the day denied he exercised any favoritism for Maimon, saying his son was not privy to any details of the gas deal and was merely shooting off his mouth in front of his friends.
‘I have no connection with Koby Maimon. I only met him once in my life, and that was 10 years ago,’ Netanyahu senior said in a statement Tuesday. ‘I acted in the matter of the gas deal for the interest of the Israeli public, to bring many billions of shekels into the state coffers.’
‘Yair didn’t have a clue about this,’ he insisted. ‘What he said, he said under the influence of alcohol.’
‘He was bantering with a friend,’ the prime minister continued. ‘And everyone who understands the details of the gas deal know exactly what I am talking about, and therefore knows that the argument that I somehow favored Koby Maimon is absurd.’
According to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the Prime Minister’s son and his friends ended up at Packer’s apartment at the the luxurious Royal Beach hotel in Tel Aviv.
Packer is also a person of interest in one of the police investigations into Netanyahu, with authorities looking to see if any inappropriate dealings took place between the billionaire and the Israeli leader.
It is unclear what the source of the tape is, yet the Israel Television News Company maintains it aired it legally.