Filber recalls PM's wife 'screaming' at him over a watch
State's witness in Bezeq corruption affair and former PM confidant Shlomo Filber recalls experience working for the Netanyahus, describing how Mrs. Netanyahu 'never forgave' him for forbidding her husband from accepting an extravagant watch from Italian PM Berlusconi; 'Two weeks later he fired me.'
Filber, the suspended Communications Ministry Director-General, who for a time served as Netanyahu's right-hand man, told investigators in the Bezeq corruption investigation that working under Netanyahu and his wife was problematic and that he encountered at least one “shocking” incident in what he described as one of the latter’s temper flare ups.
“My first job with Netanyahu was when he was foreign minister,” Filber told investigators after signing a state’s witness deal in the probe, commonly referred to as Case 4000.
“I travelled to Italy with Bibi and Sara,” he recalled, employing the prime minister’s nickname, before recounting how he had been heavily rebuked by Mrs. Netanyahu.
“Netanyahu met with Berlusconi and at the end of the meeting he gave Bibi a watch. I was then Bibi’s advisor and I told him ‘you can’t take the watch. Give me the watch. I’ll report it and deposit it,’” he recounted.
“The same evening, hours after the meeting, I was called into the Netanyahu couple’s room. Sara screamed at me, told me that she’s not at all interested (in my opinion—ed), and that she wants the watch back. I was shocked, but I told her, ‘I can’t give you the watch. I recorded it as a gift and it has already been sent in a diplomatic pouch.’ The screaming was in Bibi’s presence and he didn’t say a word.”
According to a report in Yedioth Ahronoth on January 2, 2003, Berlusconi, who was then the prime minister of Italy, gave Netanyahu an extravagant watch worth NIS 6,000 during his meeting in Rome.
At the time, it was reported that Netanyahu instructed that the inscribed Bulgari luxury watch be transferred and deposited in the state’s archives.
Officials claimed that Netanyahu told Berlusconi that the law forbids him from accepting gifts. To that, the Italian prime minister responded: “That’s your problem in Israel.”
Two weeks later, Filber claims he was summoned to the prime minister’s office for a meeting “and he fired me after saying ‘I need someone more professional than you.’”
“To this day, I’m an outcast in Sara’s eyes about this. She never forgave me with the passage of time,” he added.
“She doesn’t forgive or forget. That is the experience of working with Netanyahu. It’s clear that, when you work for him, if you don’t do what you're told they’ll chop your head off. That’s why I failed, because it was obvious that I had to follow orders.”
A statement issued on behalf of the Netanyahu family shortly after Filber’s revelations however, categorically denied any such incident. “It never happened,” the statement said.
Regarding the case itself, Filber told investigators that Prime Minister Netanyahu explicitly ordered him to hand classified documents to the Bezeq telecommunications conglomerate, claiming he was unknowingly "manipulated" into breaking the law.
Filber testified he had no idea he was being asked to carry out a task to secure from Bezeq more favorable coverage to Netanyahu and his family in their subsidiary Walla! News site, claiming he received "explicit instructions from Netanyahu," Hadashot News reported Wednesday evening.
