Sara Netanyahu, the Prime Minister's wife, began testifying Sunday afternoon at the Jerusalem Labor Court, as part of the defense in the lawsuit filed by the former Superintendent of the Prime Minister's Residence, Manny Naftali.
Mrs. Netanyahu began by speaking about the media campaign against her, and said that “for over 15 months, my blood has been spilled in the streets by Manny Naftali and his supporters, with the encouragement of the press.”
Despite these attacks, she said, she has remained silent until today. “Until this very moment, my voice has not been heard. Most of the things I saw in the media are untrue.”
Netanyahu noted that the need to intervene in the work of the superintendent stemmed from the way Naftali functioned. “I wanted to keep away from the superintendent's work,” she said. “Much to my sorrow, I was drawn into it during Manny Naftali's period. I had to. With the current superintendent, I hardly speak about anything.”
Netanyahu denied, in her testimony, some of the stories Naftali told in his testimony, including a story about turning over a table and breaking kitchenware, and a story according to which she summoned workers at the Prime Minister's Residence just to wish her a good night.
Naftali sued the Prime Minister's Office, his former employer.
In his lawsuit, he discussed issues including the refusal of the former Deputy Director of the PMO to take him in as a civil servant in spite of allegedly promising to do so, and what he called “hurtful employment” by Mrs. Netanyahu.