After hearing Sara Netanyahu recording, we can no longer say we didn’t know

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Those weakened, silenced people, who were denounced as liars, deserve this golden piece of evidence in which the prime minister’s wife is finally exposed in her own voice, in an utterly disproportional response to something marginal, negligible, unimportant: A small, and even positive, paragraph in a Yedioth Ahronoth gossip column.

One can only imagine the lady’s responses to much more acute and stressful events she had to deal with, and the kind of recordings or testimonies we might have been exposed to had the witnesses to these incidents had the courage to share them with the public.

ara and Benjamin Netanyahu. Listening to the recording, one can’t avoid thinking about the atmosphere the prime minister is living and operating in (Photo: Reuters)

Her interlocutor in this case was veteran advisor Shaya Segal, who passed away about a year ago and who possessed evidence of endless examples of this behavior. If this is how the prime minister’s wife spoke to a veteran advisor, a strong and independent person who could have slammed the phone down at any given moment and disconnected himself from the Netanyahus, imagine what hard-working employees had to go through, knowing that their livelihood depended on her and that if they opened their mouth they would be sentenced to a life of humiliation and condemnation.

When Shaya Segal could no longer take the heavy burden, he shared the stories with his associates, but made them swear not to tell. He wanted to control the information he had, to use it at his own convenience. Had Segal, who was one of the closest people to Benjamin and Sara Netanyahu, shared everything he knew and heard, we may not have reached a situation in which we need evidence to prove that something wrong, very wrong, is taking place in the most important residence in this country.

And this isn’t the only recording in which the prime minister’s wife loses it. We have known about one of these recordings for years from former Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal. His partner, Monique Ben Melech, received a phone call from the prime minister’s wife during Operation Protective Edge and has yet to recover from that conversation. Those recordings may pop up too, just like stories of sexual harassment or assault victims surface after one woman complains.

One can only imagine the lady’s responses to much more acute and stressful events she had to deal with (Photo: Haim Zach/GPO)

Those who were exposed to the recording for the first time on Sunday (and it was impossible to avoid it) probably thought at first that it was just another crazy fit thrown by Inbal Or, the former real estate entrepreneur whose empire collapsed two years ago. The high voice, the intonation, the unclear sentences, the accusations, the delusion of grandeur. When it became clear that the speaker was Sara Netanyahu, even those who were familiar with the stories were shocked. Every decent person, who has been rejecting the stories about her abuse of workers, will find it difficult to remain untrue to himself and keep saying that it never happened.

But listening to the recording, one can’t avoid thinking about the atmosphere the prime minister is living in, operating in and handling the most important issues concerning our life and future.

And here’s another reason for publishing the recording: Even those who have been dismissing the rumors about Mrs. Netanyahu's condition, claiming that it’s unimportant gossip, will have trouble sticking to this argument after hearing it with their own ears.

So we can pity the prime minister, admire him for functioning under impossible conditions—but we must take into account that Netanyahu is a prime minister under an influence, especially as we know about his wife’s involvement in the most critical and fateful decisions concerning our life.

Now, after hearing it with our own ears, we can no longer say we didn’t know.