Second businessman questioned in Qatargate probe identified as David Saig
Saig, who reportedly has dealings in Gulf, released after questioning but phone held; Bennett says PMO was ‘working for’ Qatar instead of Israel; JPost editor says he was ‘so naive’
The identity of the second businessman questioned under caution in the Qatargate investigation was revealed Saturday evening to be David Saig, after a court gag order on publishing his name was lifted.
Saig is an Israeli citizen involved in consultancy work, including in Gulf states, and previously worked in one of Israel’s security agencies, according to reports.
An attorney for Saig said after his interrogation and release that the businessman is “a law abiding citizen” who “has no connection to the suspicions being investigated in the affair.”
Though Saig was released, police confiscated his phone for use in the investigation.
Gil Birger, another Israeli businessman, was also investigated last week over his suspected role in having transferred money to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s military spokesperson Eli Feldstein, for work Feldstein did for pro-Qatar lobbyist Jay Footlik to improve Doha’s image.
Feldstein was released to house arrest on Friday after several days in custody for his alleged involvement in the affair. An appeals court ruled that Jonatan Urich, another aide to Netanyahu and key suspect in the scandal, who was arrested at the same time as Feldstein, be kept in detention until Monday.
The Qatargate affair involves suspicions that two Netanyahu aides committed multiple offenses tied to their alleged work for a pro-Qatar lobbying firm, including contact with a foreign agent and a series of corruption allegations involving lobbyists and businessmen. Police also want to question a third aide, Yisrael Einhorn, who currently resides in Serbia.
At a hearing on Tuesday regarding the detention of Urich and Feldstein, police indicated that they suspect that Urich and others — while spreading pro-Qatar messaging — framed the information as having originated from senior Israeli officials in the Prime Minister’s Office.
“Urich relayed messages to the media on behalf of the Prime Minister’s Office. The messages were [originally] conveyed by an entity that maintains ties to and is funded by the state of Qatar, and they were presented as messages originating from a political or security source,” a police investigator said in court.
‘A delusional situation’
Zvika Klein, the editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post, who was also questioned last by police as a suspect in the Qatargate case, said in an interview with Army Radio Sunday that he was very “naive” and that the affair is a “delusional situation.”
“As time goes by, I go over the conversations. I was so naive,” he said. “It’s a delusional situation in which people who work with the prime minister [also take into account] the interests of a different country.”
“I know other journalists whom Eli Feldstein was in contact with who believed they were receiving a [news] item from the prime minister. It’s very disturbing,” he said.
Klein was summoned to give testimony in the case on Monday and was then informed that he was a suspect. He was initially released to house arrest, but the restriction was lifted on Thursday. He has decried his arrest and denied involvement in the affair.
Klein, in an interview with Channel 12 news on Saturday night, fought back tears as he recalled undergoing 12 hours of police questioning and recounted the circumstances surrounding his role in the case.
Other journalists have also given testimony — Nir Dvori (Channel 12), Suleiman Maswadeh (Kan) and Shirit Avitan Cohen (Israel Hayom) — but only as witnesses.
Bennett says PMO was working for Qatar instead of Israel
On Sunday, former prime minister Naftali Bennett launched a fresh attack on Netanyahu over the Qatargate scandal, accusing the premier’s office of “working for” Qatar instead of Israel.
Rabbi Haim Drukman, at Merkaz Shapira, near Kiryat Malachi, on December 26, 2022. (Gil Cohen-Magen/ AFP/ File)
“There are three things you should understand and remember when talking about the Qatar affair, no matter how much spin they try to feed you: 1. Qatar is the main driving force powering Hamas. 2. The PM’s advisers worked for it and not for us. 3. And all this happened during a war our children are fighting,” he said.
Bennett also claimed without providing evidence that Doha knew about the terror group’s plan for a mass invasion of Israel from Gaza on October 7, 2023, and that it currently knows Hamas’s future plans.
Bennett, who plans to run in the next election and recently registered a new party, charged that “Qatar paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to Netanyahu’s closest advisers so that they would work for it without anyone knowing. In secret, through lies and trickery, the prime minister’s closest aides worked for Hamas’s driving force. It’s insane.”
Bennett also accused Al Jazeera, which is partially funded by the Qatari government, of “incitement against Israel around the world.”
Finally, the former prime minister noted the Qatari payments of hundreds of millions of dollars made to Hamas over the years, which the Shin Bet has said contributed to the terror group’s ability to carry out the October 7 attack, while omitting the fact that the payments, which were okayed by successive Israeli governments, were not canceled by the government he headed in 2021-2022.
The Times of Israel Community.