Story of Israeli PM Netanyahu’s psychiatrist dying by suicide is satire

Context

An article concerning Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s psychiatrist dying by suicide is circulating on social media. 

The article was published on November 6, 2023, on the website Global Village Space and details how Dr. Moshe Yatom, allegedly a renowned Israeli psychiatrist, took his own life and left a suicide note that implicated Netanyahu as the source of his despair. 

The story, however, is not true. It originates from a satirical blog post published in 2010.

In fact

The story was originally posted on June 8, 2010, to the blog “legalienate” which, by its own account, provides news, commentary, and satire. It is safe to say this post falls in the latter category. 

The post was followed by another a week later of yet another psychiatrist supposedly treating top-ranking members of the Israeli government also dying by suicide. A few days later, a third chapter was added to the series with a post detailing that the Israeli Air Force had just “bombed a flotilla of psychiatrists attempting to bring elephant tranquilizers to increasingly rabid Israeli leaders,” killing 46 psychoanalysts and wounding 93. Needless to say, we could find no reputable sources reporting on any of these incidents. 

In a more recent February 2019 post on the blog, the two editors of legalienate declared themselves co-presidents of the United States. 

A website that reposted the story of the suicidal psychiatrist back when it was first published to the legalienate blog clearly marked it as political satire.   

In recent days, the story made its way onto the website of notorious conspiracy theorist David Icke. Here, the headline was later amended to include the words, “From a satire original source apparently.”

Logically Facts was not able to reach the editors of the legalienate blog for comment.

The verdict

We found no evidence that a psychiatrist of Netanyahu killed himself as a result of treating the Israeli PM. The story originates from a 2010 satirical blog post, part of a three-part series that concludes with the Israeli Air Force bombing a flotilla of psychiatrists. It was not reported by reputable sources. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.