Netanyahu's wife even more controversial, reports says
Israel, Analysis, 12/13/1997

If an international prize for scandalous politicians were to be accorded, it would go to none other than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose 18 months of rule in Israel have been full of scandals and affairs that would have wrecked any other politician's carrier. The list is long, and it varies between political affairs and personal issues indicating lack of proper judgment.

First was the case of the tunnel that Netanyahu decided to open underneath the Al Aqsa Mosque in the Old city of Jerusalem in September last year. Then came the establishment of the new Jewish settlement of Har Homa on Jabal Abu Ghaneim in East Jerusalem, the new Jewish settlement in Ras Al Amoud neighborhood in the city and the continued maneuvering aimed at not honoring the signed Oslo Accords with the Palestinians and lastly the issue of peace with Syria that was compounded by erroneous Israeli intelligence reports.

The personal aspect of Netanyahu's unstable rule stems not only from his own personality, but also from his troublesome wife, Sara, who, it seems, is following in the footsteps of her husband, as was pointed out in a lengthy report in Israel's Yediot Aharonot newspaper.

In state protocols all over the world, the First Lady is always the wife of the president, the king or the Emir of that country. But Sara wants to be called the First Lady, leaving Ra'uma, the wife of Israeli President Ezer Weizman, without any title. During one of her bursts against staff members at the PM residence, Sara threw improperly shined shoes at her assistant. Then she took the nylon bag in which the assistant put the shined shoes, opened it furiously, clutched the first pair of shoes, hurled it to the ground, and screamed, "If the prime minister were to have seen what you did to his shoes, he would have butchered you, butchered you! You painted them, and now you have to pay for this, " Yediot Aharonot reported.

"I was crying, and she didn't stop yelling at me," Rachel Yaakov, the report quoted the assistant, as telling her friends later. "It was a horrible scene. I was standing in the middle of the room, trembling, humiliated. The shoes, after they hit me, were strewn all over the room, and I didn't know what to do. I was very frightened by her," the report said.

But the most problematic aspect involves Sara's proximity to the most powerful person in Israel. His dutiful responsiveness to her caprices does not represent a mere family problem. Her frequent outbursts and extraordinary behavior caused a stormy, unstable atmosphere which beclouds the person whose every decisions influence not only Israel but to some extent the future of the region, should one day he wakes up with a decision to push that red button that would launch Israel's nuclear arsenal.

While Shulamit Shamir, wife of ex-prime miniser Yitzhak Shamir was satisfied with a room which was allocated to her by the Minister of Labor and Welfare's Public Council for the Senior Citizen, from which she worked as chairperson for this agency which deals with the needs of the elderly, Sara Netanyahu insisted on an office of her own. Leah, wife of assassinated premier Yitzhak Rabin, coordinated most of her efforts from the prime minister's house. Sonya, wife of Shimon Peres, didn't have a secretary or a driver. She even licked the stamps on her official correspondence herself. But Sara demanded and was allocated her own office in the Prime Minister's office. She has two paid secretaries working there against regulations, because they work in the Prime Minister's office, and are paid out of the state budget.

Sara Netanyahu has a problem with the presence of women in close proximity to her husband. To this day she treats communications minister Limor Livnat with great suspicion. They say at Limor's office that almost every meeting between the minister and Netanyahu (Sara receives every evening the timetable of all Netanyahu's meetings) there are several names added next to hers.

Previous Stories:
  Another Mossad mess up   (12/8/1997)
  Heated debate or Netanyahu's credibility   (12/5/1997)
  Netanyahu's wife sees leftist threat to his life   (11/5/1997)

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