Qatargate: New crisis in Israel that could trigger civil war

from Daily Sabah

The name of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's genocidal and child-murdering prime minister, has been associated with a new crisis in recent days. Netanyahu, who is being prosecuted for corruption and for whom the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Gaza, is now facing a serious accusation of treason for not taking the necessary measures despite knowing in advance about the Oct. 7 attack.

In fact, Netanyahu's role in the events of Oct. 7 has been debated in Israeli public opinion before. It was argued at the time that the fact that Hamas killed all 1,200 people who allegedly died on Oct. 7 was inconsistent with the available evidence, and that none of the weapons in Hamas' possession were effective enough to have such an impact. The Hareetz newspaper even went a step further and revealed from the testimonies of soldiers on duty that day and eyewitnesses in the area that the order for Hanibal Directive was given and that the Israeli army, which was dispatched to the area, killed its own soldiers and citizens in order to prevent them from falling into the hands of Hamas. In other words, Netanyahu is not only responsible for the massacre of tens of thousands of Palestinians, but also for the killing of his own soldiers.

However, the latest incident is of a different nature than the previous allegations. Based on the investigation conducted by Shin Bet, Israel's domestic intelligence agency, and dubbed "Qatargate," there are serious allegations that Netanyahu and his office were aware of the attacks on Oct. 7 but did not report it to the security services, that the money sent by Qatar to Hamas to pay the salaries of civil servants in Gaza was transmitted through Netanyahu's advisers, and that some of this money was embezzled.

The revelation of the Shin Bet's investigation into Netanyahu and his advisers is a scandal. On Oct. 7, after the chief of the military intelligence organization Aman and the chief of staff resigned due to their failures, Netanyahu demanded the resignation of Ronen Bar, the chief of the Shin Bet. However, Bar refrained from resigning, saying that they had been conducting an investigation against Netanyahu for a long time and that it would not be appropriate for him to resign at this stage...

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