Bibi blames plotters for his expenses scandal


February 18, 2015
Sarah Benton

The story of the scandal from Washington Post, 1); comments from Haaretz, 2) and Ynet 3).


Living the high life: Bibi and Sara. Photo by GPO.

Israel’s Netanyahu spent $24,000 on takeout, and it’s causing a scandal

By William Booth, Washington Post
February 17, 2015

JERUSALEM — After nine years with Benjamin Netanyahu as their prime minister, Israelis know a lot about him and his first lady, Sara. Now they also know how much the couple spends on hair and makeup, maid service and swimming pool water.

On Tuesday, at precisely 4 p.m., the Israeli state comptroller released an eagerly awaited report condemning the Netanyahus for “excessive spending” at both the prime minister’s official residence at 2 Balfour St. in Jerusalem and the couple’s private beachfront villa in Caesarea.

Want to know how much the Netanyahus billed the Israeli taxpayer for takeout food in 2011? It was 92,781 shekels, or about $24,000, “even though there was a chef in the residence,” the comptroller noted disapprovingly.

The comptroller’s office warned of more investigations in the offing — into the issue of improper bottle recycling by the Netanyahus, for one. Apparently, the couple pocketed $1,000 in cash refunds paid by stores when staff returned drink bottles for deposit. The bottles were purchased by the state, the report noted, and so the refunds should have been returned to the treasury.

There may also be more to come about patio furniture. According to the report, some teak tables and chairs were suspiciously moved from the patio at the official residence to the patio at the private residence — and then moved back again.

The scandal — and that is what Israeli commentators are calling it — comes one month before a national election on March 17. Pollsters predict a tight race between Netanyahu and his main challenger, Labor Party leader Isaac Herzog, whose spending on pizza and grooming are not yet known.

The Netanyahu family’s use of state funds between 2009 and 2013 could potentially raise criminal issues, and it certainly violates ethical standards, State Comptroller Joseph Shapira said Tuesday. Matters are now before the attorney general.

One might think Israelis would be more interested in candidate positions regarding threats posed by enemies Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas. One would be wrong.

The 2015 campaign has been notable more for its goofy, spoofy political ads than substantive debate (speaking of which, there’s been no candidate debate).

In his front-page commentary Tuesday in the Israeli daily newspaper Maariv, columnist Ben Caspit got the national mood just right when he admitted, “It is embarrassing even to write about this. But it can’t be helped, this is what there is, and it’s ours.”

News organizations are going bananas. Leaked copies of the report were alternatively described by the media as “severe,” “dramatic” and “embarrassing.” Israeli television went live with the release of the report — followed five minutes later by rebuttals from the prime minister’s party.

Among the revelations: From 2009 to 2013, average monthly cleaning expenses Chez Netanyahu were 75,400 shekels, or about $20,000. “We see this as much too high,” Shapira opined, though he did not say what it should cost to clean two homes frequently used for official entertaining.

Netanyahu’s Likud party issued a statement stressing there is “absolutely no indication of any assault on the public’s integrity and certainly no indication of any criminal transgressions.”

On the prime minister’s behalf, Likud blamed an “embittered former public employee . . . leading a campaign of slander and defamation” and said the Israeli news media’s “focus on irrelevant minutiae” was designed to orchestrate a Netanyahu defeat.


The Netanyahus’ home.

Yet part of the frenzy is Netanyahu’s own doing.

In a preemptive strike before the release of the report, the Netanyahus had the Israeli interior designer Moshik Galamin over to film a walk-through of the official residence, to show the people the couple does not live in the lap of luxury but rather must endure tired carpets, dusty lamps and the kitchen from hell.

A 15-minute episode was released via social media Sunday by the decorator with full participation from the Netanyahus and their people. It is high camp. When Galamin, dressed all in black, isn’t gushing, he is holding his hands to his cheeks in mock shriek. Dingy drapes!

As they tour the residence, Sara Netanyahu has to yank open stuck doors. She apologizes for the dust and an arrangement of wilting flowers still on display three weeks after she received it from the visiting Japanese prime minister.

The pièce de résistance of the tour is the kitchen, which, depending whether you are an average Israeli voter or an average Israeli interior decorator, is either a bit frumpy . . . or a dump.

“I am shocked that this is your kitchen!” Galamin declares. He says it reminds him of “a 1960s public health clinic” or “a Romanian orphanage.”

Quick-eyed Israeli reporters noticed right away that the kitchen presented in the video is not the Netanyahus’ only kitchen. It is the staff kitchen, they said, the working galley where chefs whip up dinner for guests. There is a modern, unrevealed kitchen for the couple’s use on the second floor.

This might not have been the ideal optic for the Netanyahus, and especially for Sara — already a controversial figure in Israel, lampooned by TV parody shows as a Jewish Marie Antoinette.

Her former housekeepers (who are suing the couple) have alleged in affidavits that she berated them for buying milk in a bag, instead of a carton, and that there were, according to the newspaper Haaretz, “shouting, attacks and unceasing pressure, including conflicting instructions.” The Netanyahus called the accusations “slanders and lies.”

Time will tell whether the report has an impact. Surveys here suggest Netanyahu is not very popular as a person but is respected as a prime minister, even if many Israelis tell pollsters they are tired of him.

Political analysts in Israel agree the upcoming race is essentially a referendum on Netanyahu. Next week’s opinion polls will probably shed more light on what voters think about his family’s household expenses.

William Booth is The Post’s Jerusalem bureau chief. He was previously bureau chief in Mexico, Los Angeles and Miami. Ruth Eglash contributed to this report.


The State Comptroller report tells us what we already know about Netanyahu

Report revealing hedonism of Israel’s prime minister is out. And yet, somehow Netanyahu and his aides will manage to convince Israelis that he’s the victim in all of this.

By Yossi Verter, Haaretz
February 18, 2015

One of the more memorable statements made by the poetess of poverty from the prime minister’s residence, Sara Netanyahu, in the viral video clip in which she mourned her bitter fate over a wreath of dried pomegranates, was, “It’s related to how we try to save money.”

But on Tuesday the state comptroller’s report was finally published, and we all got a flood of outrageous examples about what happens when they “try to save” at the prime minister’s residences, both official and private: an unbridled, hedonistic waste of public funds on catered meals, in gross violation of regulations; huge sums spent on cleaning the private villa in Caesarea that is usually uninhabited; mind-boggling outlays on make-up and hairdressing.

There’s also the odiferous affair of the friend and Likud party member who was employed as an electrician in that same empty house, also contrary to regulations, on weekends and even Yom Kippur(!). They must be building a private power plant there in case of emergency.

But the most outrageous of all may be how poorly-paid workers who went shopping for the wealthiest prime minister we’ve ever had weren’t reimbursed for the money they paid out of their own pockets. And I wouldn’t envy anyone who tried to get his money back from the missus (since the master is “at work”). Because Bibi and Sara aren’t capable of pulling out their wallets to give, only to take – like when the prime minister forced the state to reimburse him for the 5,000-shekel ($1,290) drought tax legally levied on their Caesarea house.

The prime minister’s associates, both personal and political, predictably tried to downplay the report on Tuesday. They were sent to radio and television studios with talking points hastily prepared by the leader, his wife and their eldest son, Yair. The main motif was an undignified attempt to divert attention to the (also unjustified) expenditures of former President Shimon Peres.

As it were possible to compare a residence that’s primarily an office complex employing 130 people to a private home that is also occasionally used to host guests. Not to mention that Peres is now retired, and that while in office, he served as Netanyahu’s flak jacket against the world. But now Netanyahu has no qualms about sending his Dobermans to attack the former president.

It was embarrassing to listen to Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein contorting himself on Army Radio as he tried, to the best of his limited ability, to explain what on earth an electrician was doing in the Caesarea villa every weekend. Clearly, no task is too petty for someone who wants to keep his job in the next Knesset.

And it was sickening to hear respected ministers unblushingly parroting those talking points by trying to blame everything on the former manager of the prime minister’s residence, Meni Naftali, who is currently suing the Netanyahus. Evidently, it was Naftali who forced Sara and Bibi to consume tens of thousands of shekels worth of sushi, or expensive meals ordered in from the Sheraton Hotel, even though the official residence employs a cook; they, in their well-known modesty, only wanted schnitzel and mashed potatoes.

But the scorn ministers and MKs heaped on the report is completely belied by the hysterical preparations Netanyahu and his campaign staff made for its publication. If the report was so irrelevant, why did they treat it like a nuclear missile launched by Iran? Perhaps because they know it’s all true.

And another question: Why has the entire Likud mobilized to defend the prime minister on an issue completely unconnected to the party? Why is Netanyahu – the fearless leader, the only person capable of dealing with Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and the Islamic State – afraid to go before the cameras and answer questions himself? Why is he hiding behind Steinitz and MK Tzipi Hotovely?

The report’s publication, one month before the election, marks a milestone in a campaign that has thus far skirted substantive issues. But what impact will it have? Apparently, not much.

Ultimately all it does is recount, in dry language and figures with lots of zeroes, what anyone with even minimal knowledge of this country over the last six years already knows: Netanyahu and his wife are embodiments of hedonism, covetousness, stinginess and extravagance with public funds.

Ultimately, there’s nothing new under the broken lights of the breakfast nook on the ground floor of the prime minister’s residence. Netanyahu and his aides will simply feed the narrative that always works, in which he is the victim, the persecuted one, the one they’re plotting to topple to pave the Islamic State’s way to Jerusalem.

Next week, we’ll presumably move on to other issues, like Netanyahu’s speech to Congress the week after and its destructive impact on U.S.-Israel relations. The prime minister has both effective tools and a proven ability to set the agenda, and you can count on him to make the best possible use of them.


Netanyahu’s electability suffers blow after damning report

After Comptroller report into Netanyahu’s personal expenditures raises legal concerns, 41 percent say less likely to vote for prime minister.

By Aviel Magnezi, Ynet news
February 18, 2015

A damning report by the state comptroller into the prime minister and his family’s expenditures has dealt Benjamin Netanyahu a serious electoral blow, a new survey published by Israel’s Army Radio revealed Wednesday morning.

The report released by State Comptroller Yosef Shapira found a dramatic increase in the prime minister residence’s spending on food, cleaning and clothing after Benjamin Netanyahu took office.

According to the report, the expenditures reached millions of shekels funded by tax payers – and it pointed to a number of troubling discrepancies in billing, including one case in which a Likud activist was illegally employed with irregularly high pay. The attorney general must now decide whether to recommend a criminal investigation into either one of the affairs.

According to the survey, conducted by the Shiluv Millward Brown market research group, 41 percent of the respondents said that the chance they would support the Likud in the March 17th election had dropped. Out of those who said they were voting for the ruling party, 22 percent said they were now reconsidering, or were less supportive of the party, in wake of the report’s publication.

Some 49 percent of general voters and 54 percent of the Likud voters said the report would not influence their vote.

The comptroller report clearly found that there was legal criminal concern in at least two ongoing scandals: The first regards the prime minister’s wife, who is suspected of pocketing cash returns from recycled bottles, and the second is the garden furniture affair, in which the Netanyahu family was accused of purchasing new furniture for their private home that was intended for the official Prime Minister’s Residence.

Another section of the state comptroller’s report dealt with electrical work that was ordered for Netanyahu’s private home in Caesarea, despite the fact that the electrician was barred from working for the prime minister, because of his ties with the Likud party.

The report found that the Netanyahu family used state funds to hire him to do electrical work at the private residence under false pretences in which it appeared that a different contractor was brought in; however, in reality electrician E. did the work as a subcontractor.

 

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