Sara Netanyahu is the wife of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Channel 13 Israel confirmed that the dismissal of the Minister of Defense Israel Yoav Galant was supposed to be done, but Sara, the wife of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has not yet made up her mind about Gideon Sa’ar’s eligibility to succeed Galant.
Channel 13 reported that there is a fear within Benjamin Netanyahu’s government that the United States will respond to Galant’s dismissal by not supporting Israel in confronting the International Criminal Court.
Haaretz newspaper quoted a European diplomat as saying that Yoav Galant is “the only one whose word can be trusted” after Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot left Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
“We are working tirelessly for a swap deal, and it would be frustrating to work with an Israeli defense minister who opposes it,” the diplomat said.
“Galant realizes that if Israel starts a war with Lebanon, it is not possible to predict whether it will end quickly,” he added.
In contrast, Haaretz quoted a source in the US administration as saying that Washington would find “a way to deal with whoever takes over as defense minister in Israel,” and indicated that Gideon Sa’ar would not enjoy the same close relationship with Washington that Galant enjoyed.
Control the shadow
Sara Netanyahu, the wife of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, sits atop the decision-making circles inside Israel, albeit in the shadows.
While Sara Netanyahu’s name is linked to a number of cases related to the misuse of public funds, receiving gifts and violating workers’ rights, many of which have been investigated, she controls her husband’s political decisions, as she acts as his closest advisor. She has been criticized for being preoccupied with political matters since the outbreak of the Gaza war.
Sara Netanyahu.. Between Journalism and Psychology
Sarah is the daughter of Shmuel Artzi, and was born in northern Israel, specifically in the town of Kiryat Tivon near Haifa. Sarah studied at the Greenberg High School in Kiryat Tivon, and later worked as a reporter for Maariv, an Israeli weekly with a wide circulation among young people.
Sarah served in the Israeli army as a psychological trainer, then worked in the Behavioral Sciences Department of the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate Aman. She received her BA in Psychology from Tel Aviv University in 1984, and her MA from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1996.
She also worked as a resident and psychological trainer, caring for gifted children at the Institute for Encouraging Youth to be Creative and Distinguished, headed by Dr. Erika Landau, who worked at a rehabilitation center affiliated with the Ministry of Labor. Later in her career, she worked as a flight attendant.
According to the New York Times, Netanyahu and Sara met in 1988 while at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. She was 30 and a flight attendant, while he was 39 and Israel’s deputy foreign minister.
They dated several times, but according to Ben Caspit in his book “The Netanyahu Years,” there was no compatibility between them. Soon after, Netanyahu told friends about their breakup.
But they met again in 1991. They married in March of that year at his parents’ home in Jerusalem, and Sara, who was visibly pregnant at the time, became Netanyahu’s third wife.
Betrayal created a complex
Two years after the marriage, Netanyahu shocked the world when he appeared on air and admitted to cheating on his wife. pleasantAccording to the New York Times, reports appeared in the Israeli press after his confession, about rumors that Sarah agreed to stay with him only after she made him sign some kind of secret agreement stating that he could not have contact with other women without her knowledge, and he could not go anywhere without her. She also interfered with his work.
Netanyahu and his wife in an old photo. (AFP)
“Our whole goal was to build a wall of defense around Bibi to protect him from Sara’s madness and let him do his job,” Ben Caspit wrote in his book.
“The picture that emerges from these stories is of a scorned, angry woman,” Ben Caspit added. “Over the years and through numerous lawsuits, that picture seems to be borne out.”
According to the New York Times, in 2021, an unusual video went viral in Israel of a man named David Artzi, the former vice president of Israel Aerospace Industries. Artzi met with David Shimron, Netanyahu’s cousin who was then his personal lawyer, in 1999, who briefed him on his work with Netanyahu.
According to the newspaper, “Shimron opened his bag and took out the contract he had concluded between Sara and Netanyahu. The report was 15 pages long.” According to Artzi, it “included a clause that Netanyahu would not have credit cards, and that only Sara would have them, and that if he needed money, she would give it to him in cash.”
Artzi said the contract also specified Sara’s veto power over appointments, including the chiefs of staff of the IDF, Shin Bet and Mossad.
While Shimron has denied Artzi’s account, and has since sued him for libel. In testimony earlier this year, Sara Netanyahu said the agreement did not exist. Netanyahu has called Artzi’s account a “blatant lie.”
Netanyahu denies allegations
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara later testified in court that there was no secret contract between them that gave the prime minister’s partner the right to participate in political and professional appointments.
Netanyahu and his wife appeared at the Rishon LeZion Magistrate’s Court as witnesses in a libel suit filed by the prime minister’s second cousin and former lawyer, David Shimron.
Shimron has sued a former defense industry official and former head of the Export Institute, David Artzi, who alleged that Shimron drafted a 15-page “secret agreement” in the 1990s between Netanyahu and his wife, giving her sweeping control over key aspects of national affairs, including veto power over senior appointments and the right to participate in security deliberations.
Shimron and Netanyahu denied the allegations, and Shimron filed a NIS 425,000 ($121,000) defamation lawsuit against Artzi in March 2021.
Netanyahu said Monday that his wife not only has access to state secrets, but that she does not even know what he did during his military service as a member of the elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit.
“It’s a big lie,” the prime minister said of the alleged contract. He justified his wife taking him on foreign trips, saying it was because of their “wonderful relationship,” and dismissed any suggestion that it was due to the alleged deal.
