Prosecutor: Netanyahu’s wife asked Hollywood mogul to gift large Bugs Bunny toy to her son in 1996

By Jeremy Sharon

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3 June 2025, 2:56 pm

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Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter

Arnon Milchan (left) and Benjamin Netanyahu at a press conference in the Knesset, on March 28, 2005. (Flash90/ File)

In a story involving a giant Bugs Bunny toy and a movie screening in New York City, State Attorney prosecutor Yehonatan Tadmor seeks to challenge Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s description of his first meeting with Hollywood mogul Arnon Milchan in 1996 as almost unplanned and coincidental.

Tadmor is seeking to establish that Milchan sought out Netanyahu’s favor in order to obtain help from him in the future, and was prepared to accede to his wife’s requests, setting in motion the events that led to Case 1000 — in which Netanyahu is accused of accepting luxury gifts worth hundreds of thousands of shekels from Milchan and of having done various favors for him in return.

Tadmor asserts that ahead of the 1996 meeting, Netanyahu’s wife, Sara, had requested both a change to the movie that they were planning to see, and that Milchan bring a huge Bugs Bunny stuffed toy with him for their son, Yair.

Tadmor reads from Milchan’s testimony in 2023, in which he said “I didn’t have a driver, it was raining, but I got a pretty big Bugs Bunny, very big, and no one wanted to stop, I looked for a cab, and I’m standing there with the Bugs Bunny, and in the end… I got to the prime minister’s hotel… Sara took the Bugs Bunny and said it was ok… and then we ate dinner.” Tadmor also notes that Netanyahu had requested that he, Sara, and Milchan be left alone because they were having such an interesting conversation.

Tadmor presses Netanyahu, arguing that it was strange to make such demands of Milchan upon meeting him for the first time.

The prime minister says in response that he doesn’t recall that the movie was changed.

“Regarding the Bugs Bunny, I have no idea how it arrived. It sounds like the Hollywood movie ‘Who Killed Roger Rabbit,'” jokes Netanyahu.

“Confirm to me that you knew it was important to Milchan to meet with you, confirm to me that Milchan was important,” Tadmor insists to Netanyahu.

“I knew a lot of people who wanted to meet with me,” says Netanyahu in response.