Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday dismissed as “false” reports that his wife, Sara, had pocketed at least US$1,000 worth of public money by returning empty bottles to supermarkets.
The reports, which prompted widespread ridicule in local media outlets, come as the head of the conservative Likud Party prepares to seek re-election in a snap election set for next month.
In a long Facebook post, Netanyahu responded to “false accusations against me and my wife that seek to topple the Likud and bring the left to power.”
“All of this aims to detract attention from what is really important — who will lead the country,” he wrote.
Last week, reports emerged that Sara Netanyahu had during her husband’s second term as prime minister from 2009 to 2013 collected a vast amount of empty bottles bought by the prime minister’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 (US$1,020) of what should have been public money, the reports said.
They returned US$1,000 to the government in 2013, the Haaretz newspaper Web site reported.
However, Haaretz also cited a former employee of the couple as saying that the amount collected was thousands of shekels higher.
The matter is being turned over to Israel’s attorney general’s office, Haaretz said.
Local media outlets were quick to ridicule Sara.
Haaretz published a cartoon featuring her sitting in her living room, surrounded by empty bottles and pointing at a TV showing the latest frontier flare-up between Israel and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
“I need them to take something to the supermarket,” she appears to yell into a telephone, pointing at attack helicopters shown on the TV.
Pro-Netanyahu free newspaper Israel Hayom slammed the reports as “defamation,” as the country’s political parties prepared for the campaign trail.
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