“Right now, Likud Party supporters are split between those who plan to take some anti-nausea medication before voting for [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, and those who are convinced that the left-wing media are trying to bring him down, making their support for the Likud only stronger.”

This analysis of the political state of affairs in the Likud comes from none other than a senior Likud official, the morning after all the outrage over the state comptroller’s Feb. 17 report on “expenses associated with the prime minister’s residences.” In other words, it was a reaction to reports of ostentatious spending and an overly indulgent lifestyle in Netanyahu’s two homes. The report, released exactly one month before the March 17 elections, describes the Netanyahu family as completely aloof and unrestrained in the use of public funds. It is true that testimonies about what actually takes place in the premier's official residence on Jerusalem's Balfour Street are hardly news, and the vast cost of maintaining their private home in Caesarea has long been public knowledge. This time, however, the uninhibited spending feast is a verified fact, bearing the imprimatur of the state comptroller.

For example, hundreds of thousands of shekels were spent on costly food deliveries from hotels and restaurants, even though the prime minister’s official residence employs an in-house cook. There were extravagant cleaning expenses, too, and the hiring of an electrician in the Caesarea home, who happens to be a friend of the family and a Likud Party activist. He was given work despite an explicit ban on using external services, perhaps even raising criminal concerns. Employees of the prime minister’s residence were even forced to pay for purchases, tips and light meals for the prime minister out of pocket, without ever being reimbursed.

If evidence was needed to prove that the couple living on Balfour Street was shameless, and that they believed, like Louis XIV, that l’état, c’est nous — the state, it's me — and that they don’t show the slightest inkling of consideration for the broader public, it could be found in the state comptroller’s report. It is no longer possible to claim that the stories are all just tawdry gossip or the result of some personal vendetta.