Netanyahu shares story from anti-Israel site suggesting Epstein had ties to Israeli intel
PM apparently posted article due to its allegation of close ties between sex-offending financier and Ehud Barak, but it also calls his own rule ‘extreme’ and mired by corruption
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shared an article on X Friday from an American socialist anti-Israeli publication suggesting that disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein once worked for Israeli intelligence.
Netanyahu shared the article from Jacobin magazine shortly before the start of Shabbat, titled “Jeffrey Epstein Claimed to Have Meddled in Israel’s Elections,” without comment.
He appeared to have done so due to the fact that the article reported on recently revealed text messages from Epstein, in which the late sex offender claimed to be consulting former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak during the 2019 parliamentary election in Israel.
It said recently released leaked emails “add to a raft of disclosures in recent years that show the two men were far closer than Barak publicly let on.”
Barak and Netanyahu are longtime foes, and the former premier has increasingly criticized the Israeli leader and called him a threat to democracy.
But the Jacobin story also questioned Epstein’s ties to Israeli intelligence services, highlighting “long-standing claims and rumors that the billionaire pedophile had been an asset or otherwise worked for Israeli intelligence,” and alleging leaked emails from Barak showed Epstein was “quietly carrying out work on behalf of the Israeli government.”
There is no substantial evidence of any ties between Epstein and Israeli intelligence. Allegations that Epstein has ties to the Mossad have circulated for years based on an array of disparate connections: The fact that he was Jewish; his visits to Israel, among many other countries; and his friendship with former prime minister Ehud Barak, one of many high-profile figures he associated with, including Trump himself.
It is unclear why Netanyahu chose to amplify claims about Epstein working for the Mossad, or even whether he was aware that the article he shared was pushing such a claim when he elected to share it on social media. Notably, the article also described Netanyahu’s leadership in 2019 as an “increasingly extreme and corruption-embroiled rule.”
His office did not respond to a request for comment following the Jewish Sabbath on Saturday evening.
— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) November 21, 2025
The episode drew condemnation from former prime minister Naftali Bennett, considered Netanyahu’s most credible challenger in next year’s elections, who accused the premier of legitimizing the “antisemitic and anti-Israel” Jacobin magazine by sharing the link.
“The specific article serves Netanyahu politically” because it attacks someone he hates, Bennett wrote on X. “But when the head of the Israeli government shares from there, it gives a huge boost and legitimacy to a magazine full of accusations against Israel of genocide, apartheid and war crimes.”
“Israel’s enemies, including the magazine itself, are already celebrating this as evidence of the truth of false conspiracies against Israel,” he said.
In a later post Saturday night, Bennett lamented that Netanyahu hadn’t deleted his tweet, calling it “the greatest PR sabotage” for Israel.
Earlier this year, former Fox News host and conspiracy theorist Tucker Carlson alleged that Epstein was working for the Mossad and that he had “never met anyone who doesn’t think that.”
This week, Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene suggested that Israel was pressuring the White House not to release the full files on Epstein, telling CNN, “We saw Jeffrey Epstein with ties to Ehud Barak. We saw him making business deals with them, also business deals that involved the Israeli government, and it seems to have led to their intel agencies. And I think the right question to ask is, was Jeffrey Epstein working for Israel?”
Netanyahu’s tweet attracted interest on social media. Conservative US commentator Megyn Kelly shared the Israeli leader’s tweet Friday, saying: “So I guess it’s not antisemitic to ask if Epstein was an asset for Israeli intel and we shouldn’t just take Ehud Barak’s word for it that he wasn’t? Got it.”
Bennett responded to Kelly, saying that when he was prime minister in 2021-2022, he checked with relevant officials whether the conspiracy theory linking Epstein to Israel was true, and found out that “it never happened.”
“This is simply a false theory,” he said, calling it “100% untrue.”
The Times of Israel Community.