Energy Minister Eli Cohen, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, appears to criticize the handling of the so-called Qatargate scandal in the Prime Minister’s Office, following the lead of Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli, who last week demanded that the affair be fully investigated.
“If someone in the prime minister’s Office works on behalf of another country, he should be denounced and brought to justice,” Cohen tells Kan’s Reshet Bet radio station.
This is particularly necessary, he says, if the country in question is Qatar, “as it supports terrorism.”
The Qatargate affair involves allegations that top aides to the prime minister, Eli Feldstein and Jonatan Urich, acted as paid lobbyists for Hamas-backer Qatar while simultaneously working for Netanyahu.
The affair returned to the headlines last week following new revelations about the case, sparked by a three-part interview given by Feldstein to Kan and additional reports from other Hebrew-language outlets.
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