The Netanyahu’s Host
New details have emerged about Simon Falic and his family, in whose Jerusalem home Sara and Benjamin Netanyahu relocated at the start of the Israel-Hamas war. Hundreds of companies in tax havens, a private jet, donations to right-wing extremist Bentzi Gopstein, and spats with his neighbors. This investigation has also been published in Calcalist.
New details have emerged about Simon Falic and his family, in whose Jerusalem home Sara and Benjamin Netanyahu relocated at the start of the Israel-Hamas war. Hundreds of companies in tax havens, a private jet, donations to right-wing extremist Bentzi Gopstein, and spats with his neighbors. This investigation has also been published in Calcalist.
New details have emerged about Simon Falic and his family, in whose Jerusalem home Sara and Benjamin Netanyahu relocated at the start of the Israel-Hamas war. Hundreds of companies in tax havens, a private jet, donations to right-wing extremist Bentzi Gopstein, and spats with his neighbors. This investigation has also been published in Calcalist.
1.
For many years, Simon Falic owned or served as a director for more than 350 companies registered in Panama, a well-known tax haven.
2.
Incidentally, one of Falic’s Panama-registered companies is named after the address of the Jerusalem property where the Netanyahu family relocated at the start of the war.
3.
This is despite the fact that, according to the land registry deed, the property is owned directly by Falic and not a company.
4.
An examination of the property’s engineering records shows that despite various claims in the media, the property does not have a special bomb shelter. The records held by Jerusalem Municipality, however, show that Falic and his neighbors had several disagreements over the years, which were arbitrated by City Hall.
5.
Falic is co-owner in most of his business ventures with his brothers, Jerome and Leon Falic. The three brothers, along with their companies, are mentioned hundreds of times in the leaked Panama Papers.
6.
For example, the papers contained a contract for the leasing of a private executive jet for millions of dollars.
7.
The family’s best-known business is its duty-free empire in the United States and parts of Latin America.
8.
Falic owns dozens more companies in the United States, as well as several in Israel, including an interior design firm called Petero Hecht and guesthouses on the Golan Heights.
9.
In 2007, the three brothers established a nonprofit organization in Israel called the Segal Foundation for Israel (Segal being Hebrew initials of Simon, Jerome and Leon). Over the years, the Segal Foundation has donated millions of dollars to various causes in Israel, many of them linked to the political right.
10.
The Falic brothers also financially backed an NGO established by Bentzi Gopstein, the head of the far-right Jewish supremacist organization Lehava.
11.
A Shomrim analysis of data published by the Justice Ministry’s Registrar of Associations reveals that the Segal Foundation is winding down its operations. Since the start of 2018, there has been a significant drop in donations received from the family, decreasing from around 4 million shekels in 2019 to just 100,000 shekels last year.
12.
In the United States, the family also runs the Falic Family Foundation, which supports various American-Jewish causes, such as the Jewish Federation of Miami, the Chabad movement and various hospitals.
13.
Many members of the Falic family have donated over the years to Netanyahu’s primary campaigns.
14.
The Falic family also donates money to politicians in the United States, especially Republicans. For example, in 2022, the family’s duty-free chain donated $50,000 to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who was running at the time against Donald Trump for the Republican Party nomination in the 2024 presidential election. In addition, the family gave $20,000 to the Project Red TX, which supports Republican causes in the state.
