Netanyahu aides reportedly suspected of recently receiving six-figure sums from Qatar
Investigators said taken aback by size of payouts, allegedly amounting to hundreds of thousands paid via outside firms; Tel Aviv protesters seize on latest ‘#Qatargate report
Investigators are looking into whether hundreds of thousands of dollars were funneled from Qatar to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s aides in recent months, according to a Friday report.
The suspicion, reported by Channel 13, appeared to mark the latest of a series of allegations that figures in the premier’s circle were paid by Doha to improve its image. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara ordered an investigation into the alleged ties late last month, which is now being carried out by the Shin Bet and police.
According to the channel, six-figure sums were transferred to the aides indirectly via various intermediaries, including one owned by Jonatan Urich, a senior adviser to Netanyahu who has served as spokesman for the ruling Likud party.
Urich denied being employed by Qatar, Channel 13 reported.
Investigators were reportedly surprised by how much money had been transferred.
Israel does not have diplomatic relations with Qatar, but the two countries established trade relations in 1996, which lasted until 2009, when Doha severed them due to a previous round of fighting between Israel and Gaza.
Scrutiny of ties between Netanyahu’s office and Qatar has ramped up in recent weeks after reported allegations that Netanyahu’s former spokesman Eli Feldstein worked for Qatar via an international firm contracted by Doha to feed top Israeli journalists pro-Qatar stories.
The suspicions emerged after Feldstein was charged late last year with harming national security in a case involving the theft and leaking of classified IDF documents to a foreign media outlet.
Urich and Yisrael Einhorn, another Netanyahu advisor, were reported last year to be involved in a campaign to improve Qatar’s image surrounding hosting the 2022 World Cup.
The three are said to be the central suspects in the case. All deny wrongdoing, as has Netanyahu’s office.
Protesters against the government in Tel Aviv on Saturday night seized on the brewing Qatar scandal as the latest instance of government malfeasance, amid fears that the ties may have influenced negotiations to free hostages held in Gaza since October 7, 2023.
Speakers at the rally stood in front of a sign reading #Qatargate, on a stage that had been earlier decorated with open suitcases filled with fake $100 bills, along with three blow-up dolls dressed up as Netanyahu and what appear to be a hostage and a Qatari sheikh.
“The Prime Minister’s Office is bursting at the seams with Qatari money and there are suspicions that he acted to advance foreign interests,” Yotam Cohen, whose brother Nimrod is one of 59 remaining hostages in Gaza, told the crowd.
According to a report on Channel 12 news last month, during his tenure in the Prime Minister’s Office, Feldstein was also employed by a Qatar-funded company to improve public perception of Doha around the Gulf country’s role in hostage deal mediation between Israel and Hamas. The company was not named in the report, which also did not offer a source for the allegations against Feldstein.
According to Channel 12, Feldstein held conversations with several journalists in which he presented Qatar as having a “positive role” in negotiations. It also said the Qatar-funded firm that employed Feldstein was working to promote contacts between families of the hostages and authorities in Doha.
Channel 13 reported this week that police suspect Feldstein was paid by an American intermediary working for Qatar, who funneled money to an outside firm using a mechanism devised by Urich, who is reportedly suspected of being more heavily involved in working with Qatar than the other two suspects.
Feldstein, a former spokesman for Netanyahu, also stands accused of helping leak pilfered military documents to the press with the intent of swaying public opinion against a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza at a time when the proposal was opposed by the government.
He was arrested in November as part of a major investigation into the leaks.
Urich and Einhorn have also been implicated in that case.
