Ruth Bar breaks her silence on 1993 affair with Netanyahu and his early political rise

For decades, Ruth Bar was known mainly as the unnamed woman at the center of one of Israel’s most dramatic political broadcasts. Now, 33 years after Benjamin Netanyahu confessed their affair live on television, she has spoken publicly about the relationship and his early political rise.

The confession came on January 14, 1993, as Netanyahu competed to succeed Yitzhak Shamir as Likud chairman. Yitzhak Rabin had defeated Shamir in the 1992 election, and David Levy stood between Netanyahu and control of the party. Netanyahu had only recently returned to Israel from the United Nations, joined Likud and launched an aggressive, American-style campaign that unsettled the party’s established leaders.

Likud figures including Bennie Begin, Ehud Olmert, Dan Meridor, Roni Milo and Limor Livnat viewed Netanyahu as an outsider and a threat. They regarded him as an opportunist who had arrived from abroad to take over the party. Yet his popularity grew quickly, and he moved into the lead faster than even he expected.

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a senior Likud politician

During that rise, someone called the Netanyahu family home and told his young wife, Sara, that Netanyahu was having an affair with his strategic adviser. The caller threatened to release a tape unless he withdrew from the leadership race. Netanyahu chose not to give in. Instead, he went to Israel’s only television channel and confessed before the nation.

News anchor Ya’acov Ahimeir and police affairs reporter Uri Cohen-Aharonov were waiting in the studio. Netanyahu admitted cheating on his wife, accused a senior Likud politician, understood to be David Levy, of blackmail, and denounced what he called “a gang of criminals.” The broadcast triggered an immediate national uproar. Sara expelled him from their home, although he eventually returned. The promised tape never appeared. The account says there was no tape, only a prank or a threat made with a cap gun. Bar’s name became public, but without social media or digital media, she later disappeared from public view.

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a gang of criminals