Netanyahu adviser calls charges against Sara Netanyahu 'absurd'

Sara Netanyahu, wife of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has not committed any crime, the Netanyahu family's media adviser, Nir Hefetz, said Sunday in response to reports that the police are recommending that she stand trial in the Prime Minister's Residence affair.

"We're talking about things that don't even come close to meeting the criteria of a crime. What are we talking about? Food? A few days of treatment for her father, for which she paid using his money? Therefore, we are certain that the legal authorities will be wise enough to ignore the parsing by the media and it will soon emerge that this is all an absurdity, that there's nothing to it, even less [than nothing]," Hefetz said.

Meanwhile, in a separate development Sunday, the National Labor Court ruled that Sara Netanyahu did not have the right to appeal the Jerusalem District Labor Court's ruling on the lawsuit by former Prime Minister's Residence caretaker Meni Naftali against the Prime Minister's Office.

"After examining the claims of both sides, I arrived at the conclusion that Mrs. Netanyahu has no right to appeal the court's ruling, and therefore her appeal shall be removed from the records entirely," wrote Judge Kamel Abu Kaoud.

"[Sara] Netanyahu was not directly involved in [the suit], and was brought in to testify to help the court investigate the truth of Naftali's suit. Therefore, in her case, there was no 'accompanying trial' and 'her rights' were not violated. Her personal interest was not the subject of the discussion, and there was no determination as to her personal responsibility for Naftali's employment conditions," the judge said.

"Moreover, since [Sara] Netanyahu contributed, even significantly, to Naftali's abusive work environment, the ruling by the court does not hurt a single one of Netanyahu's rights or [affect] her obligations."

The court rejected the argument that the decisions in the ruling tied Sara Netanyahu's hands in her routine interactions with employees of the Prime Minister's Residence, and ruled that she would shoulder NIS 3,000 ($777) of Naftali's court costs.

Attorney Naomi Landau, who represents Naftali, said in response: "From the beginning, it was clear to everyone that Mrs. Netanyahu had no legal grounds to appeal the ruling in the Meni Naftali lawsuit, since she was never [directly] involved in it."

Landau said she was "calling on Mrs. Netanyahu to take a long, hard look at herself immediately and draw conclusions. Great people are people who know how to admit their mistakes."