Prime minister’s son heard bragging of strip clubs, deals

JERUSALEM — Israel’s embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced a new scandal Tuesday after a recording from 2015 emerged of his 26-year-old son joyriding at taxpayer expense to Tel Aviv strip clubs with his super-rich buddies and bragging about how his father pushed through a controversial gas deal.

The recording, which aired Monday night on Israel’s Channel 2 news, sparked public outrage over its misogynistic content and raised questions over why a statefunded bodyguard and driver were necessary to facilitate such debauchery. The often combative younger Netanyahu, who lives with his parents, issued a quick apology, saying the remarks did not represent the values he was raised on and were made under the influence of alcohol.

But the fallout was swift. A pair of opposition lawmakers appealed to the attorney general to investigate Yair Netanyahu’s security needs, saying it was “disgraceful that public funds fuel a culture of women’s exploitation.” Others piled on. “Even big kids say what they hear at home,” said Eitan Cabel of the opposition Labor party.

In the recording, Netanyahu and his friends recount their night out on the town and make disparaging comments about strippers, waitresses and other women, including one of Netanyahu’s former girlfriends.

He is also heard drunkenly bragging to the son of an Israeli oil tycoon about how the prime minister advanced a bill in parliament that the younger Netanyahu appears to believe delivered billions of dollars to his friend’s father — an embarrassing blow to the premier, who stands accused of accepting $100,000 worth of cigars and liquor from a Hollywood producer who sought intervention with the U.S. secretary of state.

At one point, Yair Netanyahu cryptically refers to 400 shekels (about $115) paid to a prostitute. “Speaking of prostitutes, what’s open at this hour?” he asks his friends before they settle on a wellknown bistro. “It’s possible the waitresses there go with the flow,” he adds.

Most of the public outcry, however, involved the younger Netanyahu’s comments to the son of Israeli tycoon Kobi Maimon about how the prime minister advanced a controversial gas deal in parliament that benefited his father.