Bennett vows to declare Qatar enemy state, says he’s seen intel it funded IRGC

Former prime minister Naftali Bennett said Monday that if he returns to the premiership this fall, he will declare Qatar an enemy state, and accused Doha of funding Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

“If I am elected prime minister, I will immediately declare Qatar an enemy state,” the Together party leader vowed, at an Institute for National Security Studies conference.

Qatar later hit back at Bennett, accusing the politician languishing in the polls of spreading disinformation for political gain.

Bennett called the Gulf state “a violent antisemitic cancer that is spreading metastases to the West and even to the office of Israel’s prime minister, with the aim of destroying the State of Israel.”

The comment was a reference to the so-called Qatargate scandal that has roiled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office for more than a year, after it came to light that several of the premier’s top aides were being paid by Doha for public relations work, at the same time the Arab emirate was hosting Hamas terror group leaders and mediating talks with it for the release of Israeli hostages held captive in the Gaza Strip.

“The leaders of Qatar have a goal of eliminating Israel, period,” Bennett stressed. “There are people who call it a ‘complicated state’ – it’s not complicated; after October 7, nothing is complicated here. Qatar is an enemy. It’s simple.”

Qatar, Bennett continued, has invested for some 25 years in a “powerful global influence operation that may have caused Israel very major damage,” referring to the dramatic turn in western public opinion against the Jewish state.

“Today, in universities in the United States, Qatar has invested billions to go in and educate the young generation,” he said. “And so the students there are educated in ‘From the river to the sea.’” Bennett was referring to the phrase frequently chanted by pro-Palestinian activists that is seen as a call to destroy Israel.

The same process, he said, was at work in Doha’s funding of Al Jazeera, which he called “an incitement operation.”

“And I’ll tell you something else – Qatar funded, directly, Hamas,” he said.

The former premier pointed first to the “billion dollars of cash” provided in what he called “Netanyahu’s suitcases,” referring to Qatari funds that Israel allowed into Gaza under the prime minister’s leadership, when Hamas was in power.

Then, Bennett said that when he was prime minister, he was shown intelligence that “Qatar also funded the Revolutionary Guards” – an elite Iranian military force loyal to the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader.

Asked whether Netanyahu had also seen this intelligence, Bennett responded: “Without question,” adding that Qatar additionally funded the al-Nusra Front, an Al Qaeda-affiliated organization that was active in the Syrian civil war, led by Syria’s now-president.

In a statement responding to Bennett, the Qatari Embassy in Washington’s media attache Ali Al-Ansari accused him of “spreading disinformation about Qatar in an attempt to further his own political ambitions.”

“Qatar’s role in efforts to support security and stability in the region have been widely recognized by regional and international partners,” Ansari said, noting that those efforts included Gaza ceasefires and hostage release deals that were carried out in full coordination with many of the same Israeli authorities who are now attacking Doha.

“Israeli politicians who criticize Qatar should instead focus on addressing their own domestic challenges,” Ansari added, lamenting that this is not the first time Bennett has criticized Doha without providing any proof.

“As we have stated previously, Israeli disinformation campaigns will not deter Qatar from continuing its constructive role in pursuing peace and security, both in the region and internationally,” the Qatari official said.

Bennett, who has fallen well behind Yashar chairman Gadi Eisenkot as the main contender to defeat Netanyahu, has called the Qatargate affair “the most serious act of treason in Israeli history.”

In December, he said the prime minister’s office had “betrayed the State of Israel and IDF soldiers during wartime” through its work with Qatar, and that whether Netanyahu was aware of the dealings or not, “both possibilities require his immediate resignation.”

The ex-premier has vowed to establish a wide-ranging state commission of inquiry into the failures leading up to and surrounding the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack if elected. In light of the Qatargate scandal, he pledged to establish a probe “that will also investigate aid to an enemy state in a time of war.”