Time fact-checks Netanyahu interview, countering his denial of ‘bankrolling’ Hamas
Magazine also pushes back on Netanyahu’s claims that he is not beholden to far-right partners and never sought to annex West Bank, and that his corruption trial is ‘unraveling’
Days after it published an in-depth interview with Benjamin Netanyahu, Time magazine fact-checked “claims that lacked context, were not supported by facts, or were not true” in which the prime minister sought to downplay his responsibility for October 7 and facilitation of funding for Hamas during his years in power.
The magazine also challenged Netanyahu’s claims that the state had prosecuted Israelis who impeded humanitarian aid to Gaza; that he had never sought to annex the West Bank; that his corruption charges were “unraveling”; and that he, not his far-right coalition partners, had the final word on government policy.
In characterizing Netanyahu’s passive approach to Gaza over the years, Time quoted from the premier’s 2022 memoir, “Bibi,” challenging his current claims that he had wanted to launch a major operation but lacked support from others.
“Did I really want to tie down the IDF in Gaza for years when we had to deal with Iran and a possible Syrian front?” Netanyahu wrote in his book. “The answer was categorically no. I had bigger fish to fry.”
The August 8 interview featured a defiant Netanyahu saying he was “sorry, deeply” about the October 7 attack, but that a probe of his failure to avert the attack should wait until the end of the war.
During the interview, whose transcript has been published in full, Netanyahu rejected criticism that he specifically had bolstered Hamas by letting Qatari cash flow into Gaza for years.
“It’s not only my government. It’s the previous government, the government before me, and the government after me,” he said. “It wasn’t bankrolling Hamas.”
In the fact-check, Time said Qatar began funneling money to Hamas in 2007, during the term of Netanyahu’s predecessor Ehud Olmert. However, Olmert did not directly facilitate the funds, as opposed to Netanyahu, Time said.
Thus, in 2018, when Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas stopped paying salaries for PA government workers in Gaza, the Netanyahu-led government transferred the Qatari funds in suitcases full of cash.
When Netanyahu was briefly out of power in 2021 and 2022, then-prime minister Naftali Bennett stopped sending the suitcases, though he allowed Qatar’s cash to continue flowing through other means.
Speaking to Time, Netanyahu sought to downplay the effect of the cash he let into Gaza.
“I don’t think it made that big a difference, because the main issue was the transfer of weapons and ammunition from the Sinai into Gaza,” he said.
However, Time pointed out that with over $1 billion from Qatar, Hamas was able to buy more weapons.
“Anything that Hamas didn’t have to use out of its own budget freed up money for other things,” Time quoted ex-CIA analyst Chip Usher as saying to The New York Times.
Netanyahu had reportedly said at a Likud faction meeting in 2019 that anyone who opposes a Palestinian state should support the funds for Hamas, the enemy of the Fatah-run Palestinian Authority.
When Time asked about the quote, Netanyahu replied: “That’s a false statement. I never said that.”
However, Time noted, besides the numerous reports of the 2019 comments, Netanyahu had reportedly said the same in a 2012 interview with journalist Dan Margalit. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich also made the claim in a 2015 interview.
As he had done barely a month into the war, Netanyahu seemed to pin the blame for Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel’s security forces.
“October 7 showed that those who said that Hamas was deterred were wrong,” Netanyahu told Time. “If anything, I didn’t challenge enough the assumption that was common to all the security agencies.”
Netanyahu had, however, said on multiple occasions — including in his memoir — that Hamas was deterred. By contrast, multiple security officials warned since January 2023 that the government’s judicial overhaul was encouraging Hamas and Hezbollah to strike.
Hamas ultimately attacked on October 7, when thousands of terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill nearly 1,200 people and take 251 hostages. Amid Israel’s major offensive in Gaza, aimed at eliminating Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, the Jewish state has been accused of preventing adequate humanitarian aid from reaching Gaza, with Israel countering that international organizations were failing to safely distribute aid Israel facilitated to Gazan civilians.
The criticism reached a fever pitch after a series of attacks on trucks bringing aid to Gaza, by right-wing activist groups arguing that Israel shouldn’t hand over aid until Hamas releases the 100-plus hostages it is still holding. Netanyahu’s far-right ally, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, has reportedly directed the police not to protect the aid convoys.
Netanyahu seemed to deflect Time’s question as to why none of the attackers have been arrested.
“They have. I don’t know. I don’t know that they’re not prosecuted,” he said.
In fact, Kan news has reported that some of the attackers were detained, but that there have been no known indictments.
Smotrich and Ben Gvir have threatened to topple the government if Netanyahu agrees to a truce-for-hostages deal in Gaza. Speaking to Time, Netanyahu pushed back on the claim that he was hamstrung by his far-right coalition partners.
“I run the show, I make the decisions. I formulate the policy,” he said.
However, as Time noted, Smotrich and Ben Gvir control 13 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, giving them outsize influence in Netanyahu’s coalition of 64 in the 120-seat parliament.
Netanyahu also told Time that despite those two ministers’ avowed pro-settler position, “I’ve not sought annexation” in the West Bank. Israel captured the territory during the Six Day War in June 1967; the international community considers settlements there, and annexation of the land, to be illegal.
Netanyahu’s statement ran counter to the premier’s open talk of annexing some 30% of the West Bank after then-US president Donald Trump unveiled his Israeli-Palestinian peace plan in January 2020.
Moreover, Time quoted Smotrich’s recent assertion that the government was promoting a “mega-dramatic” change to Israel’s role in the West Bank.
The magazine also asked Netanyahu about his ongoing trial on corruption charges.
“That trial is unraveling now,” replied the premier. “You don’t hear about it very much, but it’s really unraveling.”
In fact, the prosecution rested its case earlier this month, and Netanyahu is expected to give his own testimony when his defense begins in early December.