Netanyahu and his wife are being sued for 'racist and physical abuse' of African bodyguard and maid

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Benjamin Netanyahu has long been accused by Palestinians and African refugees of being a racist. But now the Israeli Prime Minister is being sued by a former bodyguard who says that he was constantly subjected to racist and physical abuse.

Manny Naftali, 35, says that Bibi and his wife Sarah did not just provide him with a job, primarily as a bodyguard, they also provided him with constant abuse. The former soldier says that the humiliating treatment by Mrs Netanyahu was the worse, and it occurred almost entirely with her husband's knowledge.

The lawsuit was just filed with Jerusalem district labour court. Mr Naftali explains in the suit that he worked for 20 months at the Balfour Street residence.

During that time, he describes one particularly disturbing incident when Mrs Netanyahu complained him about a Shabbat meal.

"We are sophisticated Europeans," she explained to the Moroccan-descended Naftali. "We don't eat as much food as you Moroccans. You are stuffing us, so that when they photograph us abroad, we look fat."

It is unclear why the meal was being blamed on their African Jewish bodyguard.

Mrs Netanyahu also woke him at 3am once just to tell him that he had bought the wrong kind of milk the day before. The intention seemed clearly just to harass Naftali, not to explain her shopping preferences to him. Again, it would seem that the bodyguard was being asked to perform many jobs well outside of the boundaries of his job description.

"When I complained about the time and the tone in which she spoke the harsh words to me, Mr Netanyahu interfered in the discussion and said I should do everything Mrs Netanyahu asked 'so she will calm down'," Mr Naftali explained.

Once Sarah Netanyahu smashed a vase of flowers on the floor after discovering the flowers Naftali had placed in them were not fresh. Naftali, she said, "was a poor manager and that such a thing would never happen at the Elysee Palace".

Naftali said that he was hardly the only one to allege such treatment. A full 29 staff members left "on a bad note."

"It was made clear to me that I would have to work with a bitter and undermanned staff, and an unreasonable workload and an unending turnover of household workers who refused to work in the presence of the prime minister's wife," he added.

Naftali is suing for financial damages, but he is also demanding an apology after Bibi told a television interviewer that Mr Naftali was fired when in fact he had resigned.

This follows a suit in 2010 against the Netanyahus, where their maid, Liliane Peretz said she was constantly shouted at, humiliated, overworked and underpaid. She was also insultingly forced to change her cloths repeatedly throughout the day because the Netanyahus said she was unhygienic.

Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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