Likud downplays Netanyahu’s ties to Feldstein after ex-aide implicated PM in intel leak

Ruling party denies PM paid fealty to Qatar, accuses media of using ‘fake’ case to distract from ‘actually serious’ scandals, amid allies’ unprecedented support for investigation

In a rare Shabbat eve statement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party downplayed his ties to Eli Feldstein after the ex-aide claimed that the premier was behind the leak of a stolen document of classified intelligence.

The allegation against the prime minister was made during a three-part interview series that Feldstein conducted this week with Kan, which made significant headlines, as Netanyahu to date had not been personally implicated in the so-called Bild and Qatargate probes where his top aides have either been prime suspects or indicted.

While Feldstein was widely known as Netanyahu’s spokesman for military affairs and regularly briefed reporters under that auspice throughout the war, Likud spokesman Guy Levy insisted in a Friday night statement that Feldstein was not actually the premier’s spokesman.

Levy claimed that Feldstein wasn’t even employed by the main bureau of the Prime Minister’s Office, rather by the PMO’s director-general. The Likud spokesperson didn’t explain the difference between the offices, though, Levy seemed intent in highlighting the contrast in order to minimize Feldstein’s role. Levy said Feldstein was later transferred to the PMO’s National Public Diplomacy Directorate where he worked as an external consultant.

This was a departure from the initial claim from Netanyahu’s office after Feldstein’s arrest that the latter never worked at all for the premier. After Feldstein was indicted for allegedly leaking classified intelligence to the German Bild daily in order to sway public opinion regarding the hostage negotiations last year, Netanyahu shifted to call the former aide a “patriot.”

For roughly three weeks after his November 2024 arrest, Feldstein avoided implicating Netanyahu or Urich in the Bild weak, insisting that he had acted on his own. But after coming to the realization that the premier’s office was not going to come to his defense, Feldstein changed his account, telling interrogators that he was acting at the direction of Netanyahu and Urich.

Since then, Netanyahu’s office has turned on Feldstein, accusing him of lying and insisting that the premier and his other staffers had no knowledge of any illicit activity.

Feldstein began working for the PMO under Netanyahu’s top media adviser Jonathan Urich shortly days after Hamas’s October 7 onslaught. In April, though, he failed his security clearance over what Feldstein told Kan this week was due to his acknowledgment over having once used soft drugs.

Feldstein said Urich still wanted Feldstein to continue working for Netanyahu, so he arranged an external payment scheme whereby an American consultant would regularly funnel him cash. That consultant was Jay Footlik, who is also registered as a foreign agent for Qatar under the US’s Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

Feldstein claimed in the Kan interviews that he was not aware of Footlik’s ties to Qatar or that Urich was allegedly using him (Feldstein) to promote pro-Qatari messages in the media.

While Feldstein was photographed several times throughout the war — including after he failed his security clearance — alongside Netanyahu in high-level security meetings, Levy wrote on Friday that Netanyahu “almost never came in contact with [Feldstein], didn’t include him in discussions and certainly didn’t let him in to classified meetings and discussions.”

The Likud statement also denied that Netanyahu had consistently paid fealty to Qatar, and said the so-called Qatargate investigation into his former aides’ ties to the Hamas-backing Gulf state should be dubbed “Qatar-fake.”

The statement also came after i24 published correspondence between Feldstein and two other top Netanyahu aides, Jonatan Urich and Yisrael Einhorn, leading even some Netanyahu allies to support the criminal investigation against the three for allegedly receiving payments to promote Qatar’s image as a mediator during the war in Gaza.

“The prime minister rejects with disgust the attempts to attribute foreign influence or illegal actions to him,” said Levy. He wrote that Netanyahu had, from the start of the war, issued “harsh statements” against Qatar despite the objections of “officials in the security establishment and left-wing journalists that he is ‘endangering the hostages.'”

Qatar, in turn, had criticized Netanyahu in official statements “time after time,” Levy wrote.

According to Levy, this contrasted with the “widespread ties” between Qatar and former IDF officers, prominent left-wing figures, and the Hostages and Missing Families Forum — which represented most of the families of people abducted in the Hamas-led onslaught of October 7, 2023.

But Netanyahu’s top aides also hailed Qatar’s role as a mediator throughout the role, and the premier himself made a point to characterize the Gulf country as “complex,” as he came under criticism from opposition lawmakers over his approval of Qatari funds to Gaza.

The Times of Israel published documents last year revealing how Netanyahu and his top aides sought out and expressed appreciation for the monthly Qatari cash payments to Gaza in the years leading up to October 7, as they believed that the funds were essential in preventing a humanitarian collapse in the Strip.

Critics argued that the payments were part of a broader strategy to boost Hamas at the expense of the more moderate Palestinian Authority, which backs a two-state solution — a framework that Netanyahu has long opposed.

The Friday Likud statement also noted that Netanyahu ordered an Israeli airstrike on Qatar targeting Hamas’s leadership — an operation that Netanyahu later apologized for under pressure from US President Donald Trump.

As for Urich — whose legal fees are reportedly being covered by the Likud — “the court has already clearly ruled that there is no crime and no scandal,” Levy claimed.

He appeared to be referring to the Rishon Lezion Magistrate Court, which has at least five times ruled in favor of Urich in the case, only to be overturned by the Lod District Court — most recently last week, when the higher court extended a ban on Urich returning to work in the PMO.

Levy accused the media of reporting extensively on the Qatargate scandal this week as a means to distract the public, just as “actually serious cases are blowing up.”

One of those cases, according to Levy, was former Military Advocate General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi’s leak of footage purporting to show IDF troops abusing a Palestinian inmate, “and the blood libels against IDF troops that have caused unmeasurable damage to the State of Israel.”

The other case, per Levy, was “the Iranian hacking of Naftali Bennett’s phone.” The former premier has said only his Telegram account was compromised, not the device itself.

Levy separately took aim at Bennett for letting then-Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar travel to Qatar “as a guest of honor of the Emir of Qatar.”

Bennett, who is Netanyahu’s main challenger, said after the latest revelations in the Qatargate case that it represents the “most serious act of treason in Israeli history” and that Netanyahu must resign.

Netanyahu’s critics were already blasting his Qatar connection before the Qatargate investigation, pointing to the long-time premier’s policy of letting Qatar give Hamas millions of dollars in cash on a monthly basis for years leading up to the October 7 onslaught that sparked the war in Gaza.

Netanyahu has defended the policy, saying the funds went to pay for civil servants’ policy rather than Hamas’s military activities.