Ex-police chief says he begged Netanyahu to cut ties with Qatar; Likud: Fake news
Former top cop Roni Alsheich, who was appointed by PM but became a vocal critic, claims PMO-Qatar affair ‘is much more serious than two people having contact’ with Doha
Former Israel Police commissioner and former deputy Shin Bet chief Roni Alsheich said in an interview Thursday that he had “begged” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cut ties with Qatar, as the Prime Minister’s Office is embroiled in investigations regarding reports of illicit connections between officials in the PMO and Doha.
Alsheich served as police commissioner from 2015 to 2018, and was in office when the corruption and bribery investigations against Netanyahu were initiated. He has since become a vocal critic of the premier, and became a major figure in the protests against his government’s judicial overhaul agenda.
In the interview with Kan radio, Alsheich was asked about the relations between Netanyahu’s associates and Qatar — which has become the subject of a Shin Bet investigation — to which he replied that he had “begged” the PMO to “cut off the connection.”
“How did we not cut off the connection with Qatar immediately at the outbreak of the war?” he asked. “After all, Qatar wants Hamas to rule, so how does that go together?”
“Someone is probably very anxious about what will be revealed” in the investigations, he added.
“This is much more serious than two people having contact with Qataris,” Alsheich claimed.
The former commissioner also claimed that “there used to be an inter-organizational team whose job was to thwart terrorist funds [from Qatar],” but said that this team was disbanded during Netanyahu’s time in office.
“Something doesn’t add up for me,” he said.
Netanyahu’s Likud party responded, calling Alsheich’s claims “fake news” and claiming that the former top cop has repeatedly made false claims about the prime minister.
“Against the backdrop of the fabricated cases he initiated against Prime Minister Netanyahu, which are being shattered in court,” Likud asserted, referring to the premier’s ongoing corruption trial that resulted from the police probes, “Alsheich has already admitted that he ‘expected Netanyahu to resign’ long ago and never reach this stage.”
“It is no wonder that he is now rushing to echo fake news and additional political investigations” against the PMO, Likud claimed, without detailing what exactly was false about Alsheich’s claims.
Following reports that Eli Feldstein, Netanyahu’s former spokesman, was paid by Doha to feed top Israeli journalists pro-Qatar stories, the Shin Bet confirmed that the security service had launched a probe into the alleged ties between advisers to Netanyahu and Qatar, the main financial backer of the terror group Hamas.
According to Channel 12 news, Feldstein’s ties with Qatar, which serves as a mediator of the current hostage-ceasefire deal because of its influence over Hamas, emerged during an investigation that led to him being charged in November with harming national security in a case involving the theft and leaking of classified IDF documents.
Reports of Feldstein’s ties to Doha were first published last month and followed reports in November that top Netanyahu aides Jonatan Urich and Yisrael Einhorn did public relations work for Qatar ahead of the 2022 World Cup there.
Israel has no diplomatic relations with Qatar, which hosts Hamas’s leadership. For years, with Netanyahu’s approval, Qatar transferred hundreds of millions of dollars to the terror group in Gaza.
Qatar, along with Egypt and the United States, mediated the current ceasefire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas, following 15 months of fighting that began on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages. It also helped mediate November 2023’s weeklong hostage-truce deal.
