Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu (right) with his wife Sara and Dan Shapiro, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel. Photo: wiki commons.

Vanity Fair has published a lengthy profile of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, entitled “The Netanyahu Paradox”.

David Margolick writes about Netanyahu’s political dealings and hardships, the Israeli reaction to the Arab Spring, Netanyahu’s relationship with American billionaires Ronald Lauder and Sheldon Adelson, the Iranian nuclear situation, and Sara Netanyahu – the Israeli leader’s wife.

“Seconds into any conversation about Netanyahu, the subject of Sara, whom he married in 1991, invariably comes up. It’s amazing how many otherwise sane Israelis see her Lady Macbeth-like hand in every corner of her husband’s life and work—whom he hires, what he does and doesn’t do, whom he can and cannot see,” Magolick writes.

Margolick notes the Israeli media’s obsession with Sara Netanyahu and the perception that she impedes the work of her husband while he attempts to lead the state of Israel.

“Numerous former staffers say her imbroglios periodically bring governance to a halt, forcing her husband to leave key meetings to tend to trivial matters or simply to calm her down,” Margolick writes in the July issue of Vanity Fair.  “No one seriously contends that she will determine what happens with Iran. But many think she denies Netanyahu the serenity a man in his position needs.”