US Mayor Deletes Tweet Thanking Netanyahu Son For Masks

Story By: Alex Cope, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Newsflash

The mayor of a city in Alabama has deleted tweets thanking Benjamin Netanyahu’s son for a donation of face masks.

The news comes at a time when Israel is facing a shortage of the medical equipment.

Sandy Stimpson, Mayor of the Alabama city of Mobile, had thanked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son Yair for a donation of 1,000 sought-after N95 surgical masks.

Stimpson had written. “Halalujia! Today, we received an unexpected gift of 1,000 N95 masks from an old friend. Yahir Netanyahu, the son of former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, donated 1,000 N95 masks to the City of Mobile. (sic)

“Yair visited my office last year to share ideas on how to improve law enforcement. We are incredibly blessed by his donation, which is sorely needed.”

However, the tweet was deleted 24 hours and Stimpson then wrote another post thanking Jisroel Stefansky, the President of The Advanced Security Training Institute (ASTI), for the masks.

ASTI describes itself as a non-profit organisation that deals in emergency training for police, defence and medical staff.

However, a previous post about Yair Netanyahu was not deleted, it read: “We got to know Yair when he visited Mobile last year to learn more about our approach to law enforcement. These masks are sorely needed and will be put to immediate use by our first responders and health care workers who are on the front lines in the fight against coronavirus.”

Yair Netanyahu has denied donating the masks, with the Israeli government having been frantically trying to obtain the needed protective medical gear since the outbreak of COVID-19.

A spokesperson for the Netanyahu family said: “The organisation that Yair worked for (ASTI) was the one who procured the masks and sent them to Mobile in his name, without his knowledge, as part of a pro-Israeli publicity campaign led by the organisation.”

Yair Netanyahu made headlines around the world in 2018 when an audiotape recorded outside a strip club in which he suggested that his father had helped push through a 20-billion-USD (16-billion-GBP) deal to the benefit of a gas tycoon was broadcast.

The recording was reportedly made in 2015.

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