Instead of joining the ridicule of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s wife Sarah over “Bottlegate,” MK Ayelet Shaked (Jewish Home) has a new target – the Labor-Hatnua leaders for feeding off the rumors to further their campaign.
The Haaretz newspaper reported last week that during her husband’s second term as prime minister from 2009 to 2013, Sarah Netanyahu collected a vast amount of empty bottles bought by the premier’s office and returned them to supermarkets, pocketing the money herself.
Over several years, the Netanyahus, through this practice, earned at least 4,000 shekels of what should have been public money, the report said.
The newspaper also reported that the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem spent around 100,000 shekels ($25,000) on alcohol over the past two years.
Hatnua Chairwoman Tzipi Livni slammed Netanyahu Saturday at public event in Rishon Letzion.
“This week it was published that Netanyahu spent 100,000 shekels worth of public funds over two years on alcohol. Do you know how much that is per month? 4,200 a month,” she said.
“The price of the alcohol Netanyahu drinks in a month is the same as the monthly salary of nearly one million workers in Israel, but they use it for rent, city tax, water, electricity, education, and food.”
Livni’s running partner, Labor Chairman Yitzhak Herzog, also attacked Netanyahu for the report, saying he is “busy with accusations, throwing responsibility on former prime ministers and on the Israeli media, hiding behind continual scare tactics and stories about empty bottles.”
“But we shouldn’t forget – he’s been the Prime Minister for the last six years, and responsibility for the housing crisis, hungry children and Israel’s tenuous position internationally remains on him,” Herzog continued.
Shaked slammed Herzog and Livni’s shots at Netanyahu on Sunday morning before accusing Labor-Hatnua of hiding their agenda from the public.
“If you wondered why Buji [Herzog] and Livni talk about everything except their agenda, here are the reasons.”
“Politically – they are ashamed of peace. The peace camp is ashamed of the word peace. They don’t mention it, not even negotiations, Abu Mazen [PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas], and the same tired slogans that peace is made with enemies. They’re so ashamed that they changed their name to The Zionist Camp…this is the first election that peace is not mentioned.
Shaked then addressed other internal difference within the Labor-Hatnua camp. “Economically – Tzipi and Shelly [Yechimovich], the queen of privatization and the leader of the socialists. Erel Margalit and Yossi Yonah? Their opinions are completely different.”
“It’s better to talk about bottles, isn’t it?” she charged.
Netanyahu, for his part, has denied all allegations against his wife, including this latest accusation, and has called for the media to leave his family alone.
