Coalition calls for Qatargate consequences mount; poll finds 50% say allegations are treason

Members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet and his party continue to join the chorus of voices demanding consequences for the Qatargate affair, days after bombshell media reports broadcast new details about the scandal.

Over the past week, at least four ministers have spoken out about the scandal, in which close Netanyahu aide Jonathan Urich and his former spokesperson, Eli Feldstein, are accused of working as lobbyists for Qatar while simultaneously being employed in the Prime Minister’s Office. The allegation is particularly explosive because Hamas’s leadership is based in Qatar and the Gulf state has acted as a mediator in the Gaza war and the current ceasefire.

The latest cabinet members to express concern about the allegations are Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter and Energy Minister Eli Cohen, both senior members of Netanyahu’s Likud Party.

“If someone in the Prime Minister’s Office works on behalf of another country, he should be denounced and brought to justice,” Cohen told Kan’s Reshet Bet radio station on Monday. This is particularly necessary, he said, if the country in question is Qatar, “as it supports terrorism.”

On Sunday, Dichter, a former head of the Shin Bet security service, made similar comments on social media.

“Whoever works for the State of Israel from inside the Prime Minister’s Office, and in parallel works for the state of Qatar and does public relations for it, is an outlaw,” he said in a recording he posted on the social network X. “I don’t know if he’s a criminal outlaw, but he’s certainly a national outlaw.”

Those comments follow calls by Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli of Likud and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to address the scandal seriously. Chikli said the allegations were “shocking” and “must be investigated to the fullest.” Smotrich said, “Someone who was working for an enemy state in a time of war — I don’t have words to describe how despicable and serious it is.”

Netanyahu has testified in the probe and decried it as a “witch hunt,” though his role has not been formally investigated.

The statements come after a multi-part interview Feldstein gave to the Kan public broadcaster last week in which he discussed his dealings with Urich and former Netanyahu campaign adviser Yisrael Einhorn, who has also been implicated in the scandal. He denied knowingly advancing Qatar’s interests, saying the other aides “used me, took advantage of me.”

And last week, i24 News published what it said were the contents of text conversations between Feldstein and Einhorn, in which they composed pro-Qatar messages that were presented to journalists as if they were coming from senior Israeli and American officials, focused on elevating Qatar’s role as a hostage deal mediator at the expense of Egypt, the other mediating country.

Former prime minister Naftali Bennett, who now heads an eponymous party and is seen as Netanyahu’s most credible challenger ahead of next year’s elections, called last week for Netanyahu to resign. Bennett accused him of engaging in a cover-up of the Qatargate affair, calling it “the most serious act of treason in Israeli history.”

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid and other Netanyahu critics have also called for a broader investigation into Qatargate.

And a poll published on Monday by the Walla news outlet found that 50 percent of Israelis believe that working for Qatar while employed by Netanyahu’s office should be considered an act of treason. Those who considered the allegations treason included 30% of respondents who support Netanyahu’s coalition.

The other half of respondents were almost evenly split between those who said it was not treason and those who said they did not know.

The poll also found that the Qatargate scandal may not significantly move the electoral needle ahead of the 2026 vote. Just 17% of coalition voters said the revelations in the affair would cause them to change their vote, while 12% of voters for the opposition parties said the same.

The poll said that if elections were held today, the anti-Netanyahu bloc would win a slim majority. Recent polls have consistently shown Netanyahu’s bloc trailing in a close race between the two sides, with many surveys predicting an uncertain outcome.

A date for the vote has not yet been set, but it must come by late October. The electoral landscape, including which parties choose to run together, is likely to change before Israelis head to the polls.

The poll was conducted on December 28 by online pollster Panel4All on behalf of Walla and included responses from 500 Jewish and Arab Israelis. The margin of error is 4.3%.

Ariela Karmel contributed to this report.