Former police chief slams Netanyahu at rainy anti-government protest in Tel Aviv

Thousands of Israelis protested against the government in the rain throughout the country on Saturday evening, with former police chief Roni Alsheich slamming the cabinet for its conduct amid the so-called Qatargate scandal.

“Israel stepped in to whitewash Qatar in the eyes of the United States and turned it into a financer of Hamas in the Strip under the slogan ‘Hamas is an asset,’” Alsheich told the crowd at Habima Square in Tel Aviv.

“It wasn’t [Eli] Feldstein or [Jonatan] Urich who did this, but the prime minister,” he added, referring to the aides of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who are being investigated in the scandal.

The focus on Qatar, a key backer of Hamas, in the protest came after the publication this week of reports and interviews that appeared to tie Netanyahu to the Qatargate probe, in which his top aides have either been prime suspects or have faced charges. Former prime minister Naftali Bennett called the scandal “the most serious act of treason in Israeli history.”

Urich, a close Netanyahu aide, and Feldstein, a former spokesman for the prime minister, are alleged to have worked for a pro-Qatari lobbying firm, to have maintained contact with a foreign agent, and to have committed a series of corruption offenses involving lobbyists and businessmen, while in the premier’s employ.

Later in his speech, Alsheich addressed cabinet ministers. “You bear legal responsibility, even if the prime minister doesn’t share things with you!” he said. “The state commission of inquiry that will inevitably be established will ask you: ‘What did you do to ensure that you were not serving interests contrary to those of Israel? That you were not, God forbid, part of a betrayal?’”

“How dare you sit in the cabinet eating bourekas without asking Netanyahu any tough questions?” he demanded.

The anti-government rallies are backed by a range of activist groups that are also protesting the Netanyahu government’s bids to weaken the judiciary, enshrine the Haredi exemption from military service and prevent the establishment of a state commission of inquiry into the failures surrounding the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023.

Meirav Svirsky, whose parents were killed on October 7 and whose brother Itay was killed in Hamas captivity, criticized Netanyahu’s refusal to take responsibility for the massacre.

“The responsibility is yours by virtue of your position,” she said. “You can’t run from it or adjust it to suit yourself.”

During Svirsky’s speech, a man twice tried to jump onto the stage in an attempt to disrupt the event, but was apprehended by police. He was pulled away, flailing and cursing.

“This is what it looks like when they try to silence us,” Svirsky said.

She also accused Netanyahu’s aides of treason and demanded that he resign, saying that “the price of the treason is that we have lost so much life.”

“The money that flowed into his office was the same money that paid for the murder of my family,” she alleged.

“The truth will not be silenced,” she said. “Maybe if we had kicked [the government] out on October 8, Itay would still be here. Maybe if we had kicked them out before that, my parents would still be here.”

Speaking at a protest in Haifa, Ayala Metzger, whose father-in-law, Yoram Metzger, was killed in Hamas captivity, slammed the government’s efforts to establish a politically appointed commission of inquiry into October 7.

“[The commission’s] entire purpose is to cover up, to make people forget, and to avoid taking responsibility for the October 7 massacre and the cursed ‘Swords of Iron’ war — the longest in the history of the State of Israel — which caused so much suffering, Israel’s isolation in the world, the rise in antisemitism, and the human and moral collapse of Israel,” Metzger said.

“I already know that darkness and evil are not only the domain of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but are found deep within Israel and are even running the blood-soaked government,” she continued.

Protests were also held at several intersections in northern Israel. A protest planned in Jerusalem was canceled because of the rain.