From the Liveblog of
Monday, September 29, 2025
Smotrich compares Netanyahu’s apology to Qatari PM to Nazi appeasement
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"
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich condemns Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s apology to Qatar’s prime minister for Israel’s strike on Doha, framing it as appeasement.
Comparing it to former UK prime minister Neville Chamberlain’s 1938 Munich Agreement with Nazi Germany, which was signed 87 years ago tomorrow, Smotrich cites a quotation attributed to Britain’s wartime premier, Winston Churchill stating that his country “had to choose between war and shame. They chose shame. They will get war too.”
Netanyahu’s “groveling apology to a state that supports and funds terror is a disgrace,” Smotrich tweets.
Smotrich writes that the agreement was signed on September 29, 1938, when it was actually signed in the early hours of September 30 of that year.
Netanyahu’s call to Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani also drew condemnations from far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Yair Golan, the chairman of left-wing party The Democrats.
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