Former prime minister Ehud Barak on Tuesday decried comments Sara Netanyahu made to Channel 14, where she questioned why Yair Golan had arrived at the scene so early and in uniform on October 7, appearing to echo a conspiracy theory suggesting that Golan knew in advance that the war was about to break out.
Barak questioned her mental state, but stressed that, in his view, responsibility for her conduct lay with her husband, who allowed her to behave this way.
"I say this personally, she needs professional evaluation and perhaps compassion," Barak said.
"We are talking about her because of her husband. Her husband is responsible for the involvement in these matters. All prime ministers had spouses; one had a male spouse, and all of them knew how to separate family life from political life."
Barak discusses Golan injury
Barak recalled an incident in which Golan was wounded while serving as a battalion commander. Barak visited him in the hospital.
"I asked the company commander how it was that the deputy battalion commander was the first to be wounded. They told me: 'Before we understood what had happened, Yair was the first to charge.' He is a brave and sharp man; it is very good that he is in politics, and it is a disgrace that the prime minister's wife treats him this way."
Barak also warned that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would use any means available to avoid losing the upcoming election, and said he believed the current government's policy serves Hamas.
"This is a continuation of the policy that 'Hamas is an asset and the Palestinian Authority is a burden,'" he said. "The Palestinian Authority still cooperates with the Shin Bet in thwarting terrorist activity. They are far from being my cup of tea, but they are ten times better than Hamas. Netanyahu is helping Hamas. He may not be thinking about the effect, but that is the result of his actions."
"[Netanyahu] will use every tool. He does not want to; he has to, from his perspective," Barak warned.
"If he loses, he is not a member of the government. That will immediately accelerate the commission of inquiry, and then the protocols will be opened, and it will become clear what happened with Qatar and what warnings he received from leaders in the region about what was about to happen."
"He is deathly afraid of a state commission of inquiry," Barak said. "His trial will accelerate; he could find himself convicted of an offense carrying moral turpitude. And he cannot fly abroad."
Summing up Netanyahu's position as he sees it, Barak said, "He is like a wounded animal in a trap, and he will stop at nothing."
Barak condemns West Bank violence, government response
Regarding Jewish rioters in the West Bank, Barak said, "The damage is enormous. The public is not very familiar with it, but the prime minister and his ministers understand what is happening."
"There is active encouragement from senior ministers in the government, there is a wink from other elements in the political system, and there is a turning of a blind eye by some of the enforcement bodies as a result of indirect pressure," he said.
Barak said a single incident could now trigger a violent confrontation in the area.
"All that is needed is a small incident, when one of the groups of thugs starts an event that will lead to a terrible outbreak in the West Bank that will result in there being no elections," he warned. "Anyone with eyes in their head can see that this politically serves Netanyahu and his partners. It will allow them to prevent elections, and it will allow attention to be diverted from October 7 and from the fact that none of the war's objectives have been achieved in three years."
Barak was also asked about Yoav Segalovitz joining Ra'am's list for the next Knesset.
"He is a very brave man, and you can see the truth in what he says. He does not operate according to slogans or stereotypes; he does what needs to be done," Barak said in praise of Segalovitz.
Barak argued that Netanyahu would join forces with Arab parties if it served his political interests.
"If Bibi found himself on the outside, in order to remain prime minister, it would be simple for him to bring Mansour Abbas in as interior minister and Tibi as health minister. He would do it without hesitation."
Asked who should lead the bloc seeking to replace the government, Barak said, "Gadi Eisenkot does not need my approval; he is leading the bloc."
Barak noted that in the 1999 and 2001 elections, he ran in direct elections for prime minister, "when you had to decide in advance who was leading and tell your voters which ballot to put in, but we are no longer under that system."
"Eisenkot could be a very good prime minister, but any one of those five would be an incomparably better prime minister than Netanyahu in his current mental and political state, and the people they would bring with them into the government as problem-solvers would be incomparably better than the corrupt government that is courageously leading Israel toward the abyss," Barak added.