Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former prime minister Ehud Barak engaged Tuesday into a public Twitter spat, after Barak made a comparability between Netanyahu and his spouse to French King Louis XVI and his spouse, Marie Antoinette, each of whom had been guillotined within the French Revolution.
References to violence directed at public figures, and specifically the prime minister, are contentious in Israel, particularly because the 1995 assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, which the left contends was spurred by incitement in opposition to him by politicians on the correct.
Barak, a long-time critic of Netanyahu, commented Tuesday morning on latest media studies concerning alleged inappropriate makes use of of public funds by Netanyahu’s spouse, Sara, which got here because the prime minister himself is being investigated on suspicion of corruption.
“When complaints of corruption and deprivation came in, he said: ‘There will be nothing because there is nothing.’ His wife said, If they don’t have bread, let them eat cake.’ It didn’t help them on judgement day,” Barak posted on Twitter, in a direct quote of Netanyahu’s chorus concerning the investigations in opposition to him, together with an apocryphal assertion attributed to Maria Antoinette, regarding the 1789 scarcity of bread in France.
He included a image of Louis XVI. Minutes later, the tweet was deleted.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, proper, and his spouse Sara, in Jerusalem, on May 16, 2018. (Yonatan Sindel/ Flash90)
Netanyahu responded to Barak with a tweet of his personal, writing: “Okay, it seems that Ehud Barak has lost it.”
Barak, who was prime minister from 1999-2001 and later served as Netanyahu’s protection minister, shot again on Twitter: “A few French paintings knocked Netanyahu off balance. It’s embarrassing. If this is how he deals with tweets, what will happen in the interrogations? In the courtroom? And what about running the country? Netanyahu is headed for the the end of his term.”
The change got here following two nights of Hadashot information broadcasts detailing transcripts of recordings that emerged from 2010 conversations between a former official and shut confidant of the household, Nir Hefetz, and different officers within the Prime Minister’s Office — together with its high authorized adviser, Shlomit Barnea Farago — through which allegedly inappropriate makes use of of public funds by the prime minister’s spouse had been mentioned.
On Sunday evening, Hadashot launched quotes from the recordings made by Netanyahu spokesman-turned-state’s witness Hefetz, through which Hefetz and Barnea Farago, the TV report mentioned, mentioned what they termed “greedy” calls for made by Sara Netanyahu for the state to fund landscaping work on the Netanyahus’ non-public dwelling in Caesarea, amongst different expenditures, in addition to the necessity to “protect the prime minister” from turning into “mixed up” within the alleged misappropriation of public funds.
On Monday evening, Hadashot launched extra quotes from the recordings made by Hefetz, this time that includes conversations he had had with the accountant within the Prime Minister’s Office, Yossi Strauss.
Former media adviser to the prime minister Nir Hefetz arrives for a remand listening to in Case 4000 on the Tel Aviv District Court, February 22, 2018 (Flash90)
The revelations within the tapes are eight years previous, however their publication comes days after state attorneys filed an indictment in opposition to Sara Netanyahu for alleged misuse of some $100,000 in state funds between 2010 and 2013.
In the June 21 indictment, the prime minister’s spouse is charged, together with former deputy director normal of the PMO Ezra Saidoff, for fraud and breach of belief.
The prime minister himself is being investigated in three circumstances through which he's suspected of receiving costly items from rich businessmen, of making an attempt to arrange an illicit quid professional quo take care of a newspaper writer for higher media protection, and of advancing regulatory choices benefiting a controlling shareholder within the nationwide cellphone firm in return for flattering protection on the holder’s information web site.