Mr and Mrs Netanyahu under fire over maid abuse

Tel Aviv, January 26: Already at the centre of unwelcome media attention over claims she mistreated a maid, Israel’s first lady Sara Netanyahu is facing another lawsuit from a housekeeper, the Yediot Aharonot newspaper said on Monday.

The case was filed over two months ago but the court imposed a gag order, at the request of the housekeeper who made the complaint, the mass-circulation paper reported.

While no details of the case were given, the revelation is certain to cause further embarrassment to hardline Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has tried in vain to get the media to stay out of his family affairs.

In the first lawsuit which came to public attention earlier this month, housekeeper Lillian Peretz claimed that while in Netanyahu’s employ, she was made to shower and change her clothes several times a day and to compliment the first lady, telling her “she was pretty and smart.”

The lawsuit alleges Peretz’s woes were “like the story of Cinderella,” evidently comparing Sara Netanyahu — a former air stewardess and now a practising psychologist — to the fairy tale’s evil stepmother.

Netanyahu “piled on her impossible tasks, tyrannised her and screamed at her… insulted her femininity… until her mental and physical collapse.”

The 44-year-old mother of four claimed she was paid less than the minimum wage and the Netanyahus did not pay her social benefits when she worked at their weekend home in the plush coastal town of Caesarea between 2004 and 2009.

The Netanyahus have vehemently rejected the allegations, saying in a statement that the lawsuit is “riddled with slander and inventions against the prime minister’s wife.”

—Agencies