Ruth Bar breaks silence on her 1993 affair with Netanyahu, his early political rise - interview

Dr. Ruth Bar is the most famous anonymous woman you have never heard of. On January 14, 1993, Benjamin Netanyahu, sweating and somber, burst into the studio of Israel's Channel 1 television to confess live on air that he had conducted an extramarital affair with the strategic adviser working for him in the race for the Likud leadership. That woman was Ruth Bar.The primaries to succeed Yitzhak Shamir as Likud chairman were then in full swing, after Shamir's defeat by Yitzhak Rabin in the 1992 election. Netanyahu's rival, and the man standing in his way of winning the Likud leadership, was David Levy. Netanyahu, a scion of the Revisionist aristocracy and a member of Israel's old elite, was an outsider in Likud.Only a few years earlier, he had returned to Israel from the UN, joined Likud, and decided to take the party by storm in an American style his rivals had never encountered.The "Likud princes," including Bennie Begin, Ehud Olmert, Dan Meridor, Roni Milo, Limor Livnat and others, saw him as a threat. In their eyes, he was a phony opportunist, a foreign agent who had come to carry out a hostile takeover and was trying to exploit the defeat by Rabin to seize control of the party. To their astonishment, Netanyahu rapidly gained popularity and took the lead in the race. Even he had not expected his plans to materialize so quickly.Then, in the middle of his ascent, someone called the Netanyahu family home and told his young wife, Sara, that her husband was having an affair with his strategic adviser at the primary campaign headquarters, and that unless he withdrew, a tape containing incriminating evidence of the affair would be made public.Netanyahu decided not to give in to the blackmail. Instead, he chose to get ahead of the blackmailer and confess live on television. He arrived at the studio, where news anchor Ya'acov Ahimeir and police affairs reporter Uri Cohen-Aharonov were waiting for him, and told the nation that he had indeed cheated on his wife. It was a telenovela broadcast live. In the same breath, he accused a "senior Likud politician," meaning David Levy, of attempting to blackmail him, and said he was surrounded by "a gang of criminals," meaning Ya'acov Bardugo and the late Moti Mishani.Israel had only one television channel at the time, with a 100% rating. The uproar was immediate. The entire country talked about the incident, after which Netanyahu was thrown out of his home by his wife Sara, with no intention of allowing him back. But, as usual, he returned. Crawling.That tape was never published, for a simple reason: There was no tape. Someone had either played a prank or threatened Netanyahu with a cap gun. That was enough to send him racing to television to confess live on air that he had cheated on his wife.Dr. Ruth Bar's name was indeed published at the time, but there were no social networks and there was no digital media. Bar managed to disappear back into anonymity, from which she never again emerged. She continued her work as a psychologist and strategic consultant specializing in branding and decision-making, working with senior politicians including Shlomo Lahat, known as Chich, former Ramat Gan mayor Zvi Bar, Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert, Dan Meridor and Gabi Ashkenazi. Her past clients included brands such as Osem-Nestlé, Tivall, Sabra, Strauss, Jafora, Materna, Tara, Nirlat, Electra and others. In the financial sector, she worked with Bank Hapoalim, Bank Leumi, Clal, Psagot, Gazit Globe, the Tourism Ministry and others.Bar conducted a very long series of scientific studies to substantiate the theses and theories she developed over the years. She never gave an interview, never appeared before a camera, microphone or reporter's notebook. Not off the record, not on the record. Very few political journalists, if any, know her.Over the years, she focused on research, during which she cracked the formula that makes it possible to influence the brain and the decision-making mechanism. The same mechanism causes us to choose one particular product when we stand in front of a supermarket shelf, or one particular ballot slip at the polling station.Now she is talking. For the first time ever.This interview is not about politics, nor is it about the election. Bar is reluctantly giving up her anonymity. Her life's work, a book of more than 600 pages, is being published after years of work. That is the reason for the timing.The book is called Brain Under the Influence, and it is due to reach stores around this time. It contains a great deal of professional material, but also a great deal of politics and a meticulous analysis of most of the election campaigns Israel has seen.Bar's testimony has particular significance because she was part of the small team that shaped Netanyahu's political persona at the beginning of his career, when it was still in its infancy. As you will understand later, everything roiling our lives in these years was already sown and planted back then, in those days.Holding on to lifeRuth Bar has been married all her life to the same husband, Dr. Shmuel Bar, who was also her husband during her affair with Netanyahu. He is an ophthalmology specialist who became known as an airborne physician with the 669 rescue unit and was the first to perform a full surgical tracheotomy on the battlefield.Their marriage survived that trauma, "mainly thanks to my husband," she says, but that was only the preview. Later, two of their three children were killed, one in an accidental shooting and the other in a traffic accident. It is almost impossible to recover from a blow like that. They did. Ruth and Shmuel Bar somehow managed to pull themselves out of the abyss, overcome depression, cling to life and move forward.This is the first interview she has ever given, 33 years after a single television broadcast turned her into the most famous woman in Israel, apart from Sara.Is there really a mechanism that operates our decisions? One that makes us reach for a particular product rather than its competitor, or for a particular ballot?"We have known for several decades that we have two decision-making systems. The first system is unconscious, intuitive, associative, simultaneous and very fast. It absorbs information and at the same time produces meaning from it. Then, what is in front of your eyes is what determines things. It isn't short-term memory, it is truly immediate. This system doesn't retrieve information from memory, only what is happening in front of your eyes, here and now. This system is very dominant. The second system thinks in a more logical, sequential, systematic way, and it is more critical. The first system is not critical. It is intuitive and unconscious. The second one is."So what actually happens at the moment when we face a decision?"There is an important model I developed called the 'survival layers model.' You have to understand, this model is backed by dozens of scientific studies I conducted over many years, with hundreds of respondents and hundreds of situations. According to this model, human perception is wired according to four survival layers. Nothing is accidental in the way we perceive events or brands. The first layer is impression, the second is the relations layer, the third is protection, and the fourth is emotions."Every experience, every event, everything receives a score in these four layers. Impression is how much this event impresses me. Relations is how much it relates or is connected to me. Protection includes values such as security and peace of mind. Emotions are the emotions the event generates in me: joy, hope, hatred, fear. This is where our processing begins, until the decision is made."I assume we'll come back to that later. How did your professional relationship with Netanyahu begin?"I started my career at the Warshavsky advertising agency as head of the marketing department, and from there I moved to Ariely Advertising, which sent me for professional training in Manhattan to entice me to join them. I arrived at a place that was the pinnacle of the advertising world. I studied under the greatest people in the field, and I had some nice successes in building brands. I worked with politicians. I came up with the phrase 'Lahat does Tel Aviv' for Shlomo Lahat, Chich, and Ariely loved it and turned it into a slogan."By 1989, I had already done my first political study. We didn't exactly know who it was being done for, but I assumed it was for Netanyahu, who had just returned to Israel and joined Likud. At one stage, we ran a campaign for Zvi Bar, who was then running against Ramat Gan mayor Uri Amit. Eyal Arad was on Bar's team, and they brought me in. Bar was trailing Amit by 20%, and in the end he won. On the day of the municipal election, Bibi Netanyahu unexpectedly arrived at the headquarters. That was our first meeting."Was there chemistry?"There were other people there. I was writing the numbers on the board, the results started coming in from the polling stations, and suddenly Bibi walked in. He started asking all kinds of questions, and I answered. A few days later, Arad approached me and asked whether I would be willing to meet Netanyahu. Of course I agreed."What was the meeting like?"We met in an apartment in Tel Aviv, I think at Eyal's place. They told me Bibi wanted me to watch his television appearances and analyze them, the advantages and disadvantages. They put in a tape and I watched. He was good, but there was a lot to correct. He listened to all my comments."That's how it all began?"Yes. After that I started doing political research for him. Intensive, in-depth research. At the time he had a 'submarine,' a close and secret group of advisers. Eyal Arad was there, Ivet Liberman was there, Ya'acov Akst was there, and others. One day Bibi and Ivet had an argument, and Bibi threw him out of the submarine. I was the one who convinced him to bring Liberman back. I told him: 'Ivet is very smart and very important to the campaign. Get over your anger.' And he got over it. Fortunately for him, because Ivet was a very important factor in Bibi's system."Ignoring the affair, were your professional relations with Bibi good? Did he speak with you outside the political submarine meetings as well?"Yes. Bibi would also call me privately and consult me. He asked me to come to his events in front of audiences and analyze those too. I did. At one of those events, in front of an audience of Likud members, he got a little lost. There was noise, the audience wasn't listening, they weren't impressed by him. We worked very hard on that. He wasn't the Bibi of today. He was at the beginning of his path. He was carving out his way. He needed help. He knew he intended to climb all the way to the top, to the highest floor."How long did you work with Netanyahu?"More than three years."Were you paid, or, as is customary with him, did he manage to avoid that too?"Of course I was paid. I have invoices. The payments went through the law office of Von Weisel, Fischer, Shimron."Bar will not say a word about the affair between them. Contrary to what the public understood, the affair lasted almost as long as the professional relationship. It was not a momentary slip. It ended only with that televised uproar.To the best of my knowledge, after the television uproar there were other scenes as well, including loud telephone conversations between the betrayed wife and the mistress. But Ruth Bar will not say a single word about that either. There is no point trying to persuade her. When asked why she is unwilling to talk about the affair itself, she answers dryly: "Ask him. After all, he's the one who ran to television to talk about it."What was your impression of him as a politician,