Jan. 29 (UPI) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended his wife Monday, over a recording of her yelling at an aide.
Sara Netanyahu was recently recorded yelling at a family publicist over a gossip column from 2009 that she said failed to highlight her education.
“This prime minister’s wife does public service every day,” Sara Netanyahu shouted. “In her professional capacity.”
“I’m doing it. As a professional, as an ed-u-cated woman. A psy-cho-lo-gist,” she added, going on to note her B.A. and Masters degrees.
“But it says in the first sentence that you’re a psychologist,” the publicist said, before Netanyahu ordered the publicist to reprimand the editor.
The prime minister later made a statement on Facebook about the recording, saying, “In the last nine years, have either of you raised his voice in anger once? Twice? Many times? Maybe the press and the press, too, haven’t they ever done anything like that?”
“There’s no value in these tapes. It’s just a continuation of the same journey against me and my family,” Netanyahu said. “I’ve told you more than once, you want to replace me? Deal with me at the polls. Leave my family.”
The prime minister’s defense comes after Sara Netanyahu was ordered to pay tens of thousands of dollars in damages to two workers last year who accused her of bullying them. His wife faces a third lawsuit from an employee who alleged her staff were treated like “slaves.”
Earlier this month, recordings of the prime minister’s son, Yair Netanyahu, were released that alluded to his father helping his friend’s father, gas tycoon Kobi Maimon, make a 20 billion dollar gas deal.
