Judging by Nir Hefetz, the former journalist who serves as the Netanyahu family spokesman, the State of Israel is in big trouble. On Dec. 25, Hefetz appeared on Channel 2's prime time evening news. He was invited to the show to respond to allegations that the attorney general had been pressured to shelve numerous investigation files concerning the Netanyahu family (such as the Bibitours affair, travel expenditures, the Bottlegate affair, an electrician's visit to the premier's residence on Yom Kippur and garden furniture misappropriated for the premier's private home).
Hefetz said, “If Netanyahu is shunted aside, the State of Israel will probably have to give up many strategic assets.” The way the prime minister has been handling himself indicates that Hefetz was expressing the views of his boss and of the Netanyahu household. In the premier's official residence on Jerusalem's Balfour Street and at the family villa in Caesarea, Netanyahu is considered one of a kind, indispensable. Not just a man; an asset. Up to now, the term “strategic asset” was reserved for what foreign sources call Israel’s “nuclear deterrence” at that secret installation in the town of Dimona. Any attempt to raise the curtain covering the reactor is deemed gravely harmful to a strategic asset. Ask Mordechai Vanunu.
