Netanyahu’s ex-chief of staff: Entire staff at PM’s office instructed to ‘sign pledge of loyalty to his family’
Yoav Horowitz, Netanyahu's former chief of staff, told Channel 12 that the Netanyahu family demanded personal loyalty from PM's staff, including a pledge of loyalty to the family. He said the family influences security decisions and that there is no separation between Netanyahu and his wife Sara. He also claimed a family call reversed a UN refugee deal.
Yoav Horowitz, who served as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief of staff from 2016 to 2019, gave a television interview aired Friday, August 7, 2026, in which he castigated the premier, saying he was “between a king and an emperor” and that the Netanyahu family demanded personal loyalty from the prime minister’s staff. Horowitz, now a candidate with the opposition Yashar party led by Gadi Eisenkot, told Channel 12 that the family inserts itself in the country’s security decisions and that there is functionally no separation between Netanyahu and his wife, Sara. He recounted that a staff member relayed a demand that all employees sign a pledge of loyalty to the Netanyahu family, a demand he said Netanyahu endorsed but that he refused to carry out. He also claimed that a call from a family member led Netanyahu to reverse course on an agreement with the United Nations to address African migrants and asylum seekers in Israel. Horowitz repeated his claim that Netanyahu is antidemocratic and exercises authoritarian rule, saying “Since 2019, there isn’t really democracy in Israel.” Likud responded that Horowitz has “found his new political home on the left.”