Sara Netanyahu angered by gossip column, yells at aide
In recording of a phone conversation from November 2009, the prime minister's wife is heard yelling at a senior adviser after a gossip column failed to mention she was a child psychologist in the public service; Defnding his wife, PM slams ' wild and violent hunt raging against me and my family.'
Mrs. Netanyahu was angered by a paragraph in Yedioth Ahronoth's gossip column about her sponsorship of a fundraiser.
"The title 'the prime minister's wife' obligates one to perform public activity, and this time Sara Netanyahu decided to pitch in and give her sponsorship to a fundraiser to be held in the beginning of December. The event's goal is to give disadvantaged university and school students the opportunity to study at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. Yes, the same academy sons Yair and Avner attended," the gossip columnist wrote.
Mrs. Netanyahu, however, was slighted by the fact her profession, a child psychologist in the public service, was not mentioned.
In the recording, Mrs. Netanyahu can be heard yelling at the senior adviser while emphasizing each syllable: "Psy-cho-lo-gist, B-A, M-A. That's it. Is (the editor) going to get a reprimand call from you?"
She also didn't approve of the way the item began, "Also, the wording. 'The title "prime minister's wife" obligates one to perform public activity.' Why?! Why?! This prime minister's wife is doing public work every day! In her profession!"
The Academy's periodical reported on the fundraiser two months later, writing that: "Over half a million shekels were raised by the Academy of Music and Dance in a special gala event held with the sponsorship and participation of the prime minister's wife, Mrs. Sara Netanyahu. With this, Netanyahu expressed the great importance she attributes to musical education for teens."
The prime minister issued a statement shortly after responding to the publication of the recordings, attributing it to what he says is a deliberate smear campaign against him and his family.
“The secret recording that was published today in the media is the continuation of a wild and violent hunt raging against me and my family. What’s the ‘great discovery’ they discovered this time? A recording from nine years ago with nothing in it,” Netanyahu said.
“Is there any person who has never got mad and said a few words that they didn’t mean in the heat of the moment? But only in the case of my family it is broadcast as leading news items and becomes a battering tool in the continued attempt to topple the government which I am heading and not through the ballot,” he continued.
Accusing the media of hypocrisy, he highlighted that it persistently ignored the public service his wife carried out on a daily basis.
“This is the same media that for many years has ignored the extensive public activities by my wife, for children sick with cancer, bereaved families, elderly people and Holocaust survivors,” the statement went on.
“The real things don’t interest the media, which makes every effort to hide them from the public. On this occasion too, this despicable attempt will not succeed. The public is smart and understands very well what is really happening here.”
