What else is going on in Netanyahu's house?
Following the court's decision in favor of Meni Naftali, the ex-employee has disclosed that there are more details yet to be revealed about the dysfunction in the prime minister's residence.
Hours after he won his lawsuit claiming hostile work conditions created by the wife of the prime minister, Meni Naftali, the former house manager at the prime minister’s residence, called a press conference Feb. 10. What he said was no less important than the court’s verdict: “There are many more things I didn’t reveal. Very serious things that harmed the functioning [of the prime minister] … the prime minister knows about it all.”
The court’s reverberating verdict read in part, “The examination of the evidence presented before us shows a very grim picture of what occurs at the prime minister’s residence in all that relates to the conditions of employment, the work environment they are exposed to, their treatment and the safeguarding of their honor and their rights.” At the center of the verdict by Judge Dita Pruginin is Sara Netanyahu, who managed the workers at the Jerusalem residence. But the public debate should also focus on the responsibility of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the affair. Since the prime minister lives in the same house and is exposed to the behavior of his wife, he should also be seen as a partner to the humiliating treatment of workers — even if he didn’t yell at them or abuse them directly.
Naftali’s lawsuit concerns the period when he served as the house manager of the official residence, between 2011 and 2012. Beyond his personal victory and the decision that the state would compensate him 170,000 shekels ($43,000) for his experience, for the first time the verdict gives a legal stamp to the many complaints of humiliating and abusive treatment at the prime minister’s residence. In this sense, the ruling is a public triumph. For years the prime minister and his wife have succeeded, by means of a well-oiled machine of lawyers and public relations staff, to defame former workers who voiced such complaints. The court’s verdict, reached thanks to Naftali’s stubbornness and courage, provides the public with a ruling from an objective source that the complaints were right, and paints, for the first time, a clear and credible picture of affairs at the prime minister’s residence.
The judge determined that Sara Netanyahu is directly responsible for hurting employees. The court’s verdict describes an angry outburst that she channeled into abuse of residence employees. Netanyahu demanded that several workers reset a table for lunch at the home’s garden, claiming that a canopy raised above the table caused the food to get dirty. Her son Avner heard her demand and commented that there was no need to redo the work. Sara Netanyahu’s response was harsh: She pulled the tablecloth from the table and the dishes and food still on it fell on the floor. Afterward, she instructed employees to pick up everything that fell and reset the table within five minutes, and they did so.
