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United Hatzalah ordered by Israeli District Court to pay 250,000 shekels for a coordinated plan to defame and libel Magen David Adom

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United Hatzalah, the best known of more than a dozen independent hatzalah first-aid organizations operating in Israel, was ordered by an Israeli District Court to pay 250,000 shekels for defaming Magen David Adom, Israel’s national emergency medical service.

In a ruling that was extraordinary in its severity, the court also ruled that United Hatzalah acted in violation of Health Ministry guidelines, harming public safety in the process.

The damages United Hatzalah was ordered to pay is high by Israeli standards, commensurate with the egregious nature of the libel. Typically, in Israel, slandered public figures have been awarded damages on average of about 70,506 shekels and public organizations about 43,040 shekels.

United Hatzalah and its leaders ran an orderly and deliberately planned campaign in which they slandered Magen David Adom through false and disgraceful statements made to the news media.

“Freedom of expression is not freedom of contempt, and the right to have a voice is not the right to humiliate,” Justice Naftali Shilo said in the ruling.

In the 42-page ruling, Judge Shilo harshly criticized United Hatzalah for continuing to publicize its 1221 phone number and encouraging the public to call it during medical emergencies, rather than 101, Israel’s official medical emergency number.

“It has been proven that United Hatzalah ignored the directive of the Ministry of Health and continued to publish its emergency number, 1221,” the ruling said. “This action is dangerous and harms public safety, as stated in the State Comptroller’s report.”

The ruling singled out the behavior of three of United Hatzalah’s leaders, Founder and President Eli Beer, Spokesman Moti Elmaleh, and Chief Executive Officer Moshe Teitelbaum for engaging in a campaign of defamation.

“This is not the way [to behave] and this is not the way of the Torah,” the ruling said, “I hope that this lesson will be learned in the future.”

The court ordered that part of the settlement be paid out of Beer’s, Elmaleh’s, and Teitelbaum’s own pockets for acting in bad faith by promulgating false statements.

In a countersuit, United Hatzalah was awarded 25,000 shekels for a statement made by MDA, in which the organization said United Hatzalah was running more of a profit-making business than a first-aid service, although the court conceded those statements were made in anger after a series of provocative acts by United Hatzalah.

The ruling also addressed allegations made by United Hatzalah that MDA had not acted properly in several medical emergencies. However, the court said just the opposite was true, and that the failures cited were on the part of United Hatzalah. In particular, in an incident in which a pre-school student died after ingesting sand, the court noted that it took three minutes for United Hatzalah’s call center to notify MDA of the emergency and that United Hatzalah’s responding EMT didn’t have a child’s oxygen mask among his equipment.

The court also emphasized the extent of United Hatzalah’s false statements made to major media outlets and the potential damage those falsehoods caused to MDA’s reputation.

“The defendant must be held accountable for the fact that these are eight very widespread publications and various media outlets, made with the intent to harm the plaintiff, and without the defendants seeking MDA’s response to the serious allegations before publication,” the ruling said. “The defendants also refused to apologize for these publications despite MDA’s request to them in a letter that was not answered at all. The defendants did not express any remorse for their publications.”

Magen David Adom said the court ruling was just and necessary.

“The ruling speaks for itself and we welcome the court’s decision and are happy the truth is finally coming out,” said Eli Bin, Magen David Adom’s director-general. “We are so sorry we had to go to court, but we were not able to bear the damage to the good name of Magen David Adom and the good name of thousands of our employees and our volunteers who work day and night to save lives.

“There are more than a dozen hatzalah organizations in Israel, and we have a collaborative relationship with virtually all of them,” Bin said. “With one exception, as cited by the court in this case, they’ve all operated under the Ministry of Health’s protocol, been dispatched by MDA, and have worked with us to save lives throughout the country. People in Israel and throughout the world have benefited from this mutual cooperation.”

Below is the rebuttal from United Hatzalah:

Tel Aviv District Court Denies MDA the Majority Of Its Lawsuit and Says MDA’s criticism of United Hatzalah “is not true”

Tel Aviv – In a ruling that was handed down regarding the lawsuit filed by Magen David Adom (MDA) against United Hatzalah for defamation, the court, under Judge Naftali Shiloh, decided not to award MDA 90% of the remedy it sought. The original lawsuit, under which Magen David Adom demanded 2.6 million NIS in damages, ended with them receiving less than 10 percent of that amount. The court also criticized Magen David Adom for unjustifiably filing a lawsuit with the District Court for “most excessive” damage award and said the matter never should have gone to a District Court but rather to a mere magistrate.

Magen David Adom’s lawsuit was based on statements made by a number of United Hatzalah’s volunteers in the course of protest arguing that Magen David Adom refused to share pertinent information regarding the location of people who called for emergency medical assistance back in 2018.

Judge Shiloh wrote in his decision that “The amount demanded in the suit by Magen David Adom was most excessive,” and that, ”I have awarded them less than 10 percent of the amount requested.”

In addition, United Hatzalah filed a reciprocal defamation lawsuit against MDA for comments depicting United Hatzalah as a “business” rather than as a charity dedicated to saving lives. The court accepted this claim and granted United Hatzalah 25,000 NIS in damages.

Judge Shiloh wrote with regard to this that “There is no doubt that (The Director-General of MDA Eli) Bin aimed the arrows of his critique in an interview against United Hatzalah and called the emergency medical service organization United Hatzalah a “business”. These comments were made in order to humiliate and degrade United Hatzalah, an organization with which Magen David Adom has had an ongoing and acute conflict for many years as has already been described. His (MDA’s Director General’s) statement that United Hatzalah is acting due to business motivations is simply not true and was said in order to give the impression of United Hatzalah as an organization whose lead interests are financial. These statements are of course aimed at hurting United Hatzalah’s fundraising initiative, whose primary support comes from donations.”

Continuing his reasoning for his decision Shiloh wrote: “(Eli) Beer [United Hatzalah’s founder and president], spends most of the days of the year abroad, working day and night in order to make sure that United Hatzalah prospers. He is continually involved in trying to raise as many funds and resources as possible in order to save lives. United Hatzalah does not work to enrich its leaders and top executives, rather it works to further the goals of the organization, that of saving lives. 

Shiloh also added that “United Hatzalah is an organization whose mission is to save lives” and noted “the importance of the organization and its considerable contribution”.

President and Founder of United Hatzalah, Eli Beer said “We are happy that this is over and that we can return to focusing on our mission which is saving lives. We are saddened that public money that is intended to save lives is being needlessly wasted in legal proceedings. I agree with what Judge Shiloh wrote in his decision: “It is upon the parties to stop their arguing and fighting, resheath their swords, and focus only on saving lives and not to waste their money, (which emanates from public funds and or donations) on litigation instead of purchasing lifesaving medical equipment”.

Sadly, in our efforts to make the lives of all Israeli citizens better and save their lives, we have been dragged into this legal battle by MDA. I am pleased that the court recognized the importance of the lifesaving work done by United Hatzalah’s network of volunteers. We will continue to do everything we can to save as many lives as we can while working together with all relevant parties who are involved in such work.”

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