Mansour Abbas says foreign-linked actors pressured him to ally with Netanyahu in 2021

Ra’am party chairman Mansour Abbas said Saturday that foreign-linked actors — possibly related to Qatar — had pressed him to continue coalition talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rather than join with opposition parties following the 2021 election, citing the premier’s perceived dovish approach to Hamas.

Abbas was courted by Netanyahu to become part of his coalition in 2021, but he eventually partnered with Netanyahu’s rivals, making Ra’am the first Arab party in decades to be part of a ruling coalition, which was led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid.

Speaking in an interview with Channel 12 news, the Arab lawmaker claimed that before the terror group’s onslaught of October 7, 2023, Netanyahu had sought a “long-term arrangement” with Hamas in order to keep the Palestinian leadership fractured and divided between it and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority.

When asked if he “received signals from Qatar” as he sat in the room with Netanyahu during their subsequently scuttled coalition negotiations, Abbas responded, “not in the room.”

He refused to confirm or deny whether he received messages from Qatari-linked actors, but divulged that he was contacted by “people from here [Israel] with links to countries abroad.”

“These people encouraged me to continue and try to form a government with Benjamin Netanyahu and not with the other side,” because “Netanyahu doesn’t do wars,” Abbas said.

“I understood that Benjamin Netanyahu had an interest in ensuring that the fragmentation on the Palestinian side was preserved,” he continued, adding that the premier sought to “advance a long-term arrangement with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.”

When asked whether Netanyahu made an explicit reference to this, Abbas said “there was a reference to this issue” in coalition talks.

“I understood from his words that he was in favor of an arrangement [with Hamas],” he continued, claiming that such an arrangement had stood to benefit both Netanyahu and the terror group.

Abbas added that he wasn’t shocked by the Qatargate case that has since come to light, in which three of Netanyahu’s aides are suspected of doing paid PR work for the Gulf monarchy, and that he “connected the dots” after the scandal broke.

“People have a hard time today understanding what the Qatargate story is, but in those days, there was a shared interest, held both by Netanyahu and Qatar and Hamas, to preserve the existing situation,” he said.

Abbas’s remarks about the premier drew fierce reactions Saturday from opposition lawmakers, including former prime minister Bennett, who asserted that “[since-slain Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar preferred Netanyahu because Netanyahu is good for Hamas, this is the truth.”

“Mr. Netanyahu, who for years led this horrible policy of strengthening Sinwar and funding Hamas in dollars, the policy of ‘containment’ and in the end, on his watch, the October 7 massacre… must go home immediately,” he continued.

Yisrael Beytenu party chairman Avigdor Liberman posted a Valentine’s Day-themed joke, picturing what appeared to be AI-generated versions of Netanyahu and Abbas holding hands on a backdrop of roses.

Netanyahu’s Likud party was ordered Friday by the Central Election Committee to delete an image it posted last month that similarly used AI to depict Bennett and Lapid celebrating with Arab party leaders.

יום אהבה שמח❤ pic.twitter.com/Sel1CkURFn

— אביגדור ליברמן (@AvigdorLiberman) February 14, 2026

The Democrats MK Gilad Kariv reacted by demanding that law enforcement start investigating Netanyahu himself for alleged ties to Qatar.

“Qatar interfered in the last elections. It will try to do so again,” Kariv wrote on X. “What has been revealed about Netanyahu’s ties to Qatar is only the tip of the iceberg. The time has come to investigate Netanyahu as a suspect over his ties to Qatar.”

Later on in the interview, Abbas recalled that Netanyahu gave him “lectures” on Zionist leader Zeev Jabotinsky during the since-scuttled coalition talks between the two.

He said it was as if the premier “wanted to stress that Likud is precisely the party that is trying to advance Arab society’s standing,” and thus quoted Jabotinsky’s saying that “if there is a Jewish prime minister, his deputy should be Arab.”

Abbas then took a swipe at Netanyahu, saying that “they [in Likud] aren’t faithful to the path of Jabotinsky,” who is considered the right-wing party’s ideological forebear.

Abbas did not rule out future talks with Likud, despite his recent comments accusing Netanyahu of abandoning Arabs in favor of the country’s ultranationalist right, which enjoys significant influence in the current ruling coalition.

He stressed that he would much prefer to sit in a government without Netanyahu, however, adding that his “first preference” is for a “‘change government’ to be established in Israel.”

The “change government” was the name given to the previous Bennett-Lapid government that included Ra’am, and which collapsed after a year.

Neither Netanyahu nor Likud issued a reaction to Abbas’s interview on Saturday.