From the Liveblog of
Thursday, March 13, 2025
Ex-Shin Bet chief says PM ‘bought peace in Gaza with Qatari money,’ but always knew it would backfire someday
Former Shin Bet chief Nadav Argaman, who served in the post from May 2016 until October 2021, asserts that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to “buy peace [in Gaza] with Qatari money,” even though it was clear that the strategy would eventually backfire.
Argaman, during a wide-ranging interview with Channel 12, says that Netanyahu decided in 2018 to allow Qatari money into the Gaza Strip after the Palestinian Authority cut off funding to Hamas, leaving Israel fearful of unrest in the coastal enclave.
“The State of Israel wanted peace in the Gaza Strip and was looking for ways to bring in the money, and they chose Qatar because Qatar agreed to it,” Argaman says, adding that he believed the idea to be a “very serious mistake” from the get-go.
He says that Netanyahu nevertheless went ahead with the plan, despite the security service’s stance, as “the strategy of his government was peace in the Gaza Strip.”
“We bought peace with Qatari money — it was clear to everyone that this would backfire on us one day,” he says. “The prime minister knew, the cabinet knew, the issues were presented more than once or twice.”
He acknowledges, however, that the Shin Bet, as well as the IDF, “should have done everything in their power to stop the Qatari funds” from flowing into Gaza.
During the interview, Argaman also touches on the ongoing investigation — which has been placed under a sweeping gag order — into ties between members of the Prime Minister’s Office and Doha, and allegations that hundreds of thousands of dollars had flowed from Qatar to figures linked to the premier.
Asked whether the alleged ties, should they be proven to be true, could have occurred without Netanyahu’s knowledge, Argaman says the prime minister “knows everything that happens in his office, nothing happens without his approval.”
“I think the first person who should have jumped to demanding a Shin Bet investigation…into whether there were Qatari ties to the prime minister’s office, is the prime minister himself,” says the ex-Shin Bet chief.
Argaman doesn’t hide his distaste for the Qatari government during the interview, telling Channel 12 that he believes forging ties with Doha is akin to “dancing with the devil.”
“Qatar is part of the Shiite axis,” he says of the majority Sunni nation. “They’re the ones that allowed Hamas to build its terrorist army in the Gaza Strip. If, god forbid, it managed to gain control of the Prime Minister’s Office, it would mean that it influences the prime minister, the Prime Minister’s Office, and the State of Israel’s policy toward Hamas in general, and the hostage deal specifically.”
“That sounds to me like a catastrophe, and I hope that there’s nothing true about it,” he says of the allegations.
Argaman also tells Channel 12 that he believes the ongoing investigation into his office is the reason that Netanyahu has yet to fire Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar, as doing so could be flagged as a conflict of interest.
He urges Bar to hold off on resigning over the failures leading up to the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught — although he says Bar should eventually do so — as he does not believe Netanyahu would make an apolitical decision regarding his successor.
“I am extremely afraid of the possibility that an appointment made by this government, an appointment made by this prime minister, could be a political appointment,” Argaman says.
