Bennett calls on Shin Bet, police to probe Netanyahu in Qatargate ‘betrayal’ case

Former prime minister Naftali Bennett calls on Israel’s law enforcement agencies, the Shin Bet and Israel Police, to “exhaust the [Qatargate scandal] investigation to its very end,” including questioning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself.

In the so-called Qatargate affair, Netanyahu’s close aide Jonatan Urich and former spokesman Eli Feldstein are suspected of offenses tied to their alleged work for a pro-Qatar lobbying firm, including contact with a foreign agent and a series of corruption charges involving lobbyists and businessmen, while they were working for the prime minister.

Their actions are a “knife in the heart of our heroic soldiers, and a knife in the heart of the entire people of Israel,” says Bennett in a video message.

“This is the gravest betrayal in the history of the State of Israel because it does not come from minor figures… but from the most senior and powerful people in Israel. We must honestly acknowledge that planting active agents inside the office of the prime minister of Israel is a significant intelligence and security success for our enemy, Qatar.”

Bennett says that he is “not claiming that Netanyahu gave the order to act on behalf of Qatar, or even that he knew his closest advisers were receiving hundreds of thousands of shekels from the enemy.” But he is asking why the prime minister remains silent and continues “at this very moment, to cover up the betrayal in his office.”

Netanyahu, Bennett asserts, should have taken action the minute he found out about the scandal and “immediately dismissed, in disgrace,” his advisers and “urgently summoned the head of the Shin Bet and the Police commissioner, and demanded they open a thorough security investigation to expose the entire network of agents” and ensure his office was untainted.

However, Netanyahu acted in “exactly the opposite way,” alleges Bennett, accusing the prime minister and his team of “doing everything they can to torpedo the investigation of the truth.”

“I hereby call on the Shin Bet and the Israel Police: It is your national duty to exhaust the investigation to its very end,” Bennett says, demanding that everyone involved, including Netanyahu himself, answer who knew about the scandal and when, and what intelligence was compromised because of it.

“I trust the security and law enforcement systems to act quickly and not abandon the security of the state,” Bennett adds.