From the Liveblog of
Monday, October 12, 2026
Bennett slams PM for keeping Qatar-linked aides, says he cannot remain in government
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleStav Levaton is a military reporter for The Times of Israel
Former prime minister and B’Yachad chairman Naftali Bennett stresses that he would not join a government with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after his remarks yesterday, which he insists were tongue-in-cheek, that the premier could serve as a minister in his government sparked backlash.
“Netanyahu cannot spend another minute in the Israeli government. He bears responsibility for October 7, and he has to go home,” Bennett says at a Yedioth Ahronoth conference.
Bennett also says Netanyahu bears responsibility for his advisers’ alleged ties to Qatar, including his senior adviser Jonatan Urich, a key suspect in the so-called Qatargate affair, who reportedly received payments from Doha dating back to just after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught.
Bennett says Urich had been directly involved with Qatar during wartime, and that “the same people who financed the Nukhba fighters financed the group of advisers around Netanyahu.”
“Of course he is responsible – for not throwing them out,” Bennett says of Netanyahu. “How are parents of soldiers supposed to feel at ease when people on a Qatari payroll are in the prime minister’s closest circle?”
Bennett calls the alleged conduct “the gravest betrayal in Israel’s history” and says Israel should designate Qatar an enemy state.
Bennett also attacks Shas chairman Aryeh Deri over funding for ultra-Orthodox men who do not serve in the military.
“Deri has no shame,” he says (in Hebrew, literally, “has no God”). He accuses him of seeking to transfer money “from those who serve to those who dodge service.” Bennett vows to instead “take money from the draft dodgers and give it to those who serve.”
Additionally, he calls National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir a “clown” and “Israel’s minister of protection rackets,” saying that under Ben Gvir “there has been more crime, more extortion, more fear, more protection money paid by businesses.”
“There are twice as many murders, and extortion has doubled,” he adds.
The Times of Israel Community.