Bennett: Qatargate suspects deserve life in prison for ‘serving the enemy’

Former prime minister Naftali Bennett says the suspects in the Qatargate scandal deserve a life sentence for smearing Egypt while promoting Qatar, which Bennett brands an “enemy.”

The comments, made in a social media video, are Bennett’s latest volley of harsh rhetoric about the scandal, in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s senior aide Jonathan Urich and his former spokesperson Eli Feldstein are accused of working as paid lobbyists for Doha while in the premier’s employ.

“Now all of the people of Israel know: From the materials that have been uncovered, it has clearly emerged that Netanyahu’s people not only received a salary from Qatar in order to whitewash Qatar/Hamas, but they also took advantage of their special position in the [Prime Minister’s] Office to tar Egypt,” he says. “All this was done to serve the enemy, Qatar/Hamas, at a time of war.”

He then cites a clause of Israel’s criminal code that, he says, indicates the punishment for such conduct is life in prison.

“A person who intentionally sabotages Israel’s relations with another state is liable for life imprisonment,” Bennett says in the video. “This is exactly what Netanyahu’s people did when they maliciously sabotaged our relations with Egypt.”