Rabat- Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife are facing a legal battle after their housekeeping staffer, who is a Moroccan Jew, filed a lawsuit on Thursday claiming he “was mistreated and verbally abused by the Israeli leader's wife, Sara,” according to the the Independent.
Meni Naftali, the former chief steward of Netanyahu's official residence, is suing the Israeli Prime Minister over the ‘‘unbridled outbursts’’ of his wife, Sara, according to The Independent.
In the lawsuit, Naftali said that he was repeatedly subjected to abusive language, including an ethnic slur, by Sara Netanyahu during his 20 months on the job. “He is seeking around £110,000 in damages,” The Independent reported.
Naftali said that Sara once told him, “We are Europeans, we are delicate. We don’t eat so much like you Moroccans. You are stuffing us and then, when they photograph us abroad, we look fat.
Recounting his experiences, Naftali said that the Israeli first lady made him 18 hours a day, including at night, adding that no matter how hard he worked to met the Prime Minister’s wife’s demands, he was treated with an “arrogant and demeaning behavior.”
“The Prime Minster’s wife woke me at 3am after a grueling day of work and with loud shouting reprimanded me for buying milk in bags and not cartons,”he was quoted by the same source as saying.
Nanftali reported that PM Netanyahu has supported his wife, stating that whenever he “protested about the hour and the tone, the Prime Minister intervened and demanded I do all Mrs. Netanyahu requested so that she would ‘calm down’.”
PM Netanyahu’ office described the charges as “evil gossip”, explaining that Naftali “was violating the couple’s privacy ‘in order to sully them with the intention of extracting money illegally from the Prime Minister’s office’”.
Edited by Jessica Rohan