Key witness in PM’s trial: Sara Netanyahu once threatened to kill herself, blame me

Hadas Klein, a key witness in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial, said in a television interview broadcast Friday that the premier’s wife Sara once threatened to take her own life and leave a note saying it was because of Klein and her then-boss, billionaire Arnon Milchan, a benefactor of the Netanyahus.

Klein told Channel 12 news that she long suspected smears against her on social media were directed “from above” in retaliation for her testimony, adding she he felt vindicated by the network’s investigative report last month that appeared to show Sara Netanyahu was behind the online invective.

Klein also appeared to confirm a recent exposé in the Haaretz daily that in 2017, then-opposition leader Isaac Herzog — now Israel’s president — visited her privately, which she saw as an “attempt to influence me” amid her testimony against the prime minister.

“The gates of hell were opened on me,” Klein said, describing a sustained, organized campaign of harassment against her, with thousands of online posts accusing her of immorality and criminality. She said her husband, Shraga, told her he was “afraid someone will put a bullet in your head.”

Klein is a witness in Case 1000, in which the prime minister is accused of having illicitly received hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cigars, champagne, and jewelry — much of it allegedly at Sara Netanyahu’s request.

In one instance, Klein said, Sara Netanyahu demanded that Milchan and another alleged benefactor, Australian billionaire James Packer, buy her and her family a gift for their wedding anniversary.

The gift, paid for by Packer, was a $46,500 bracelet, according to an invoice produced by Klein. Sara Netanyahu later asked to exchange the gift after her husband said she “can’t wear it because it’s Romanian,” according to Klein, who surmised the premier meant it was kitschy.

“I said to myself, he’s right,” said Klein, “because you can’t go outside with that kind of bracelet.”

Klein added that the episode with the bracelet countered contentions by Netanyahu, who has recently been testifying in his graft trial, that his wife made the requests and he was unaware of them.

Sara Netanyahu’s alleged pressure campaign

When Klein began testifying, she said, Sara Netanyahu tried to get her fired, telling Arnon Milchan, falsely, that Klein was having an affair with his driver Jonathan and that the two could not be trusted.

After 38 years as his secretary, Klein said Milchan ultimately fired her following the completion of her testimony for the state prosecution in September 2022.

Meanwhile, a falsehood about Klein’s affair with Milchan’s driver was being peddled on pro-Netanyahu media, along with similar false claims involving Milchan, Packer and former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen.

Another viral smear accused Klein of securing her Herzliya home by blackmailing Opposition Leader Yair Lapid when he was finance minister under Netanyahu. Activists from the premier’s Likud party soon posted Klein’s address and started holding daily protests outside her home.

Correspondence from the premier’s longtime secretary Hanni Bleiweiss, cited in the Channel 12 investigative report last month, indicated that Sara Netanyahu had ordered her husband’s late aide to sic the Likud activists on Klein. Following the report, Israel’s attorney general and state prosecutor ordered police to launch an investigation into Sara Netanyahu.

Klein told the network about some of Sara Netanyahu’s more abrasive behavior toward her.

In one conversation, Klein said, Sara Netanyahu assailed her for preventing a construction foreman appointed by Milchan from surveying the Netanyahus’ Caesarea residence ahead of renovations there.

During the “screaming conversation,” Sara Netanyahu said that “she’s late for work because of me, that they’ll fire her because of me,” even though the premier’s wife had initiated the call, according to Klein.

“Worst of all, she said: ‘I’ll take my own life and I’ll write a note that it’s because of you and Arnon,'” said Klein.

A couple of hours later, Klein said, she received a call from the prime minister himself trying to excuse his wife’s behavior.

“You need to understand, she’s being slaughtered by the media, you shouldn’t be [on the side of] the media,” the premier said, according to Klein.

He also justified the gifts he was allegedly receiving, Klein said, by saying that “you’re not giving things like apartments and such, which are forbidden — I’ll explain this to Arnon and Packer as well.”

Responding to the interview, the Prime Minister’s Office slammed it as “more lies by Hadas Klein, whose testimony collapsed in court and who has emerged as an obsessive Kaplan Street protester” — a reference to the Tel Aviv street that saw weekly demonstrations throughout 2023 against the government’s plan to overhaul the judiciary. Channel 12 said Klein has never attended the Kaplan Street protests.

Unusual visit by Herzog

A Haaretz report last month revealed that then-opposition chief Herzog, who is also a friend of Milchan, came to Klein’s home in 2017 to share with her what Benjamin Netanyahu’s legal defense would be. The newspaper suggested Herzog’s visit was a bid to rattle Klein regarding her testimony against the prime minister.

Before they sat down in her backyard, Herzog asked that their phones be placed inside so that they couldn’t be recorded, the report said.

According to the newspaper, Herzog told Klein that Netanyahu had told police Milchan was the one who insisted on giving Netanyahu gifts and not the other way around.

Speaking with Channel 12, Klein said the claim “bugged me, because I said, okay, next thing he’ll say we also seized him and stuck a cigar in his mouth.” She said everyone knew the Netanyahus were the ones who had sought gifts from Milchan.

Klein confirmed to Channel 12 that she and Herzog left their phones in her bedroom and spoke in her backyard. Herzog even had to come back to her house after leaving because he forgot his phone in her bedroom, she said.

She also appeared to confirm Haaretz’s suggestion that the meeting was a bid to rattle her.

“What I thought is that maybe Herzog was sent at Netanyahu’s orders,” said Klein, adding that it felt to her like “a way to fool me.”

“It angered me,” she said. “I felt like even the people I consider trustworthy are coming to influence me.”

“He should have said what he meant by that visit,” she added. “I can say only what I felt.”

Herzog has denied to Haaretz ever trying to influence the cases against Netanyahu. In a further denial to Channel 12, Herzog also said he has long held private meetings without phones in the room, and assailed the intimation that the custom suggested anything dubious.