Wife Sara controls Netanyahu? Prime Minister threatens suit as social media claim goes viral

Only 12 days before the election, video appears alleging Sara has a contract giving her power over her husband and government appointments.

By Paul Shindman, World Israel News

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office threatened legal action Thursday after a video appeared on social media alleging that the Israeli premier’s wife has a signed contract giving her veto power over her husband’s political decisions, Ynet reported.

The surprise video uploaded to YouTube on Tuesday by journalist Dan Raviv appeared to be aimed at discrediting the long-time leader of the Likud Party less than two weeks before the March 23 Israeli national elections.

In the video, which has already garnered more than a quarter of a million views, the former director of the Israel Export Institute, David Artzi, claims that in 1999 he met with Netanyahu’s lawyer and cousin, David Shimron.

Artzi says Shimron showed him a contract the couple signed that grants Sara Netanyahu wide-ranging control over their personal affairs but includes stipulations that she can be present at top secret meetings and approve the appointment of senior officials.

Raviv stated that he has known Artzi for many years and said “his testimony was found credible in two polygraph tests he underwent.”

Shimron categorically denied the claim, calling the statements in the video “a fabrication and a lie.”

“I have never made such an agreement for Benjamin and Sara Netanyahu, I have never seen an agreement that someone else made, and in any case I have not shown such an agreement to anyone,” Shimron told Ynet.

“A complete and recycled lie that will be dealt with legally,” the Prime Minister’s Office said in response to the video.

Artzi called himself a long-time member of the Likud Party and said he was shocked at the terms he saw in the alleged contract.

In the video, Artzi alleges that the 15-page contract was signed by the Netanyahu couple with their ID numbers. Under the terms, the prime minister is not allowed to travel at night without his wife, and that in the event of a breach of contract on his part – all joint property will pass to the prime minister’s wife.

“I went through the sections and my eyes darkened,” Artzi says in the video, saying there were clauses that stated Netanyahu’s wife could sit in at all top secret meetings, even though she has no security classification, and her approval in writing was needed for Netanyahu to appoint the head of the Mossad, the head of the Shin Bet and the IDF chief of staff – otherwise it would be a “breach of contract.”

“It is written she will manage the finances, it’s written there how, and that he will not have credit cards, she will only have credit cards and if he needs money she will give him cash,” Artzi claimed. “In short, it [the contract] controls all things related to Bibi Netanyahu.”

Sara Netanyahu has repeatedly been in the press over allegations of abuse and corruption in the prime minister’s official residence, saying the press uses her as a “punching bag” to get at her husband.

In 2019 she pleaded guilty to charges of using state funds to buy meals when there was a full-time chef at the prime minister’s residence.

2021 Israel electionsBenjamin NetanyahuSara Netanyahu