Netanyahu’s former strategic adviser gives first interview since PM revealed their affair on live TV in 1993

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s former strategic adviser Dr. Ruth Bar has given her first interview since the premier revealed their extramarital affair on live national television in 1993.

Netanyahu was running in a Likud leadership primary at the time and an anonymous caller had phoned his home and threatened his wife Sara, who picked up, that if he didn’t pull out of the race, a tape would be released showing the extramarital affair.

Netanyahu decided to get ahead of the news and rushed to the studio of what was then Channel 1, where he confessed to the affair on live TV.

Bar tells the Maariv news site’s Ben Caspit that she only learned of Netanyahu’s plan to go public about their affair moments before he went on air.

Reflecting on the interview during Channel 12’s Friday evening news broadcast, Caspit notes that there never actually was a tape of the affair.

He also notes that both Netanyahu and Bar’s marriages survived the affair.

Bar managed to remain largely anonymous and was able to have a successful career as a psychologist and strategic consultant. She is about to publish a book, Moah Tahat Hashpa’ah (Brain under influence), about decision-making mechanisms and branding strategies.

Caspit says she reached out to him to conduct the interview because of the book’s imminent publication, and that the timing of the interview, less than two months before elections, is coincidental.

Caspit says Bar’s affair with Netanyahu lasted for several years but that she was completely cut out of the premier’s circle once it became public.