From the Liveblog of
Monday, December 22, 2025
Bennett: PM involved in cover-up of Qatargate, ‘the most serious act of treason in Israeli history,’ and must resign
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleSam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Former prime minister Naftali Bennett accuses Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of engaging in the cover-up of the Qatargate affair, “the most serious act of treason in Israeli history,” and should resign.
“Netanyahu’s office betrayed the State of Israel and IDF soldiers during wartime and acted on behalf of Qatar for financial gain, and Netanyahu himself is covering it up,” Bennett declares in a statement following new revelations in a report last night. “Whether Netanyahu knew or did not know that his office was working for the enemy in time of war, both possibilities require his immediate resignation.”
“Three of Netanyahu’s closest advisers were in effect paid agents of Qatar and Hamas at the height of the war, when our soldiers were fighting and being killed by Hamas bullets purchased with Qatari money,” Bennett says, adding that this “can certainly explain why the Israeli government failed in the ultimate goal it set for itself in the war: the destruction of Hamas.”
“Qatar’s declared goal is Hamas’s survival. Israel’s declared war goal is the destruction of Hamas. They chose sides. Instead of acting for Israel, they acted for Israel’s enemies,” Bennett continues, accusing Netanyahu’s office of working “tirelessly to malign Egypt, which is anti-Hamas, and whitewash Qatar, which is pro-Hamas.”
This harmed national security and even if the staffers are not guilty on a legal level, “from a security and ethical perspective” their behavior is “a betrayal of our soldiers,” he said.
Bennett pledges to establish a state commission of inquiry “that will also investigate aid to an enemy state in time of war” if he is elected to lead the next government.
Bennett’s statement is endorsed by Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, who calls the Qatargate scandal “the most serious treason affair in the history of the state,” and The Democrats chairman Yair Golan, who writes on X that “Netanyahu’s office betrayed the country’s security in the Qatar affair, and Netanyahu must be fully investigated over it.”
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.
WhatsApp messaged obtained by the Ynet news site in August revealed that former Netanyahu campaign adviser Yisrael Einhorn had crafted pro-Qatar messages and sent them via WhatsApp to Feldstein, who forwarded these messages to Urich, who then disseminated the messaging to journalists, in an effort to improve Doha’s image in Israel.
Last night, i24 News reported that further correspondence between the suspects showed that they had shared fabricated information attributed to “senior security officials” and “senior American officials” that played up Qatar’s role in negotiations with Hamas while attempting to sideline Egypt.
The network also reported that the staffers worked together with a reporter from the pro-Netanyahu Channel 14 to “refine” the text of his story based on their messaging.
The Times of Israel Community.