Netanyahu, Ehud Barak trade barbs on Twitter

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former prime minister Ehud Barak engaged Tuesday in a public Twitter spat, after Barak compared Netanyahu and his wife Sara to French King Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette, both of whom were guillotined in the French Revolution.

References to violence directed at public figures, and in particular the prime minister, are contentious in Israel, especially since the 1995 assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, which the left contends was spurred by incitement against him by politicians on the right.

Barak, a long-time critic of Netanyahu, commented Tuesday morning on recent media reports regarding alleged inappropriate uses of public funds by Sara Netanyahu, which came as the prime minister himself is being investigated on suspicion of corruption.

Barak tweeted about Netanyahu: “When complaints of corruption and deprivation came in, he said: ‘There will be nothing because there is nothing.’ His wife said, If they don’t have bread, let them eat cake.’ It didn’t help them on judgement day.” The tweet was a direct quote of Netanyahu’s refrain regarding the investigations against him, along with an apocryphal statement attributed to Maria Antoinette, concerning the 1789 shortage of bread in France.

Barak included a picture of Louis XVI. Minutes later, the tweet was deleted.

Netanyahu responded to Barak with a tweet of his own, writing: “Okay, it seems that Ehud Barak has lost it.”

Barak, who was prime minister from 1999-2001 and later served as Netanyahu’s defense minister, shot back on Twitter: “A few French paintings knocked Netanyahu off balance. It’s embarrassing. If this is how he deals with tweets, what will happen in the interrogations? In the courtroom? And what about running the country? Netanyahu is headed for the end of his term.”

The exchange came following two nights of Hadashot news broadcasts detailing transcripts of recordings that emerged from 2010 conversations between a former official and close confidant of the family, Nir Hefetz, and other officials in the Prime Minister’s Office — including its top legal adviser, Shlomit Barnea Farago — in which allegedly inappropriate uses of public funds by the prime minister’s wife were discussed.

On Sunday night, Hadashot released quotes from the recordings made by Netanyahu spokesman-turned-state’s witness Hefetz, in which Hefetz and Barnea Farago, the TV report said, discussed what they termed “greedy” demands made by Sara Netanyahu for the state to fund landscaping work at the Netanyahus’ private home in Caesarea, among other expenditures, as well as the need to “protect the prime minister” from becoming “mixed up” in the alleged misappropriation of public funds.

On Monday night, Hadashot released additional quotes from the recordings made by Hefetz, this time featuring conversations he had had with the accountant in the Prime Minister’s Office, Yossi Strauss.

The revelations in the tapes are eight years old, but their publication comes days after state attorneys filed an indictment against Sara Netanyahu for alleged misuse of some $100,000 in state funds between 2010 and 2013.

In the June 21 indictment, the prime minister’s wife is charged, along with former deputy director general of the PMO Ezra Saidoff, for fraud and breach of trust.

The prime minister himself is being investigated in three cases in which he is suspected of receiving expensive gifts from wealthy businessmen, of trying to set up an illicit quid pro quo deal with a newspaper publisher for better media coverage, and of advancing regulatory decisions benefiting a controlling shareholder in the national phone company in return for flattering coverage on the holder’s news website.

The Netanyahus deny any wrongdoing.

Raoul Wootliff contributed to this report.