Israeli Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter accused “the extreme left and the media” of doing everything possible to topple Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a politically charged podcast interview with right-wing non-profit PragerU in which he harshly criticized the premier’s opponents.
Members of the diplomatic corps are supposed to be non-political, and his comments marked a rare instance of an Israeli politician or diplomat publicly bashing political adversaries in English, which Netanyahu has also done and been castigated for in Israel.
Leiter added that the prime minister’s political opponents, who have accused Netanyahu of prolonging the war in Gaza for political reasons, are guilty of a “blood libel.”
“It’s legitimate to oppose a government. I’ve opposed governments in my political career, and that’s fine. But don’t cross the border, don’t cross the line. Don’t level blood libels at your own prime minister,” he said.
“I’ve known the prime minister for 40 years. He’s a sensitive man who cares about people. Prolong a war? What kind of insanity is that? How dare they say something as malicious as that? He wants the war to end, but in victory because he carries the weight of the Jewish people on his shoulders.”
According to successive polls, most Israelis believe Netanyahu is more interested in remaining in power than winning the war or freeing hostages. The most recent poll aired Saturday on Channel 12, showed that 55 percent of the public believes that Netanyahu’s main goal is to remain in power.
Leiter proceeded to dismiss the criminal charges in Netanyahu’s ongoing corruption trial. “The charges are crumbling like a deck of cards,” he said. “They just built these sand castles. The idea was to tire him to the point where he’d break. He’s not breaking.”
The ambassador also falsely claimed that Netanyahu was in court over the so-called submarine affair, the week he was planning an operation in Lebanon. Netanyahu was questioned by police in connection with the deal, and several of his close associates were indicted for their involvement in the case, but the prime minister himself was not charged and is not standing trial over the scandal.
“He was in court the week that he was planning the operation in Lebanon. Over what accusation? That we ordered submarines from Germany, and why was it from Germany and not from elsewhere? And these are all trumped-up charges. It has to stop,” Leiter said.
Netanyahu, who is under indictment in three separate cases, has been testifying in court since his trial resumed in December. He faces charges of fraud and breach of trust in Case 1000 and Case 2000, and charges of bribery as well as fraud and breach of trust in Case 4000.
Responding to reported tensions between Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump, Leiter said that these were baseless rumors: “There is tremendous respect between the two of them,” he said. “We have a very warm and cordial relationship.”
According to him, “If President Trump had remained in office, we would have reached that point of normalization with Saudi Arabia.”
When asked about growing Qatari influence, Leiter said: “I’m a lot more uncomfortable with Qatar than anybody else.”
“Qatar is supporting the arsonists and the fire department,” he continued, explaining that while Qatar is hosting the ceasefire and hostage deal and putting pressure on Hamas to release hostages, they also “belong to the ideas of the Muslim Brotherhood.”
“They’re accommodating the West because they can influence using their money and they’re doing it,” Leiter said, adding: “They have an agenda and it’s not a pro-Western agenda.”
The ambassador did not mention the ongoing probe of Netanyahu’s close aide, Jonatan Urich, and former military affairs spokesperson, Eli Feldstein, who are being investigated for their alleged work on behalf of a pro-Qatar lobbying firm while working as advisors to the prime minister, in the ongoing so-called Qatargate scandal.
Leiter’s remarks in the PragerU interview were not the first his first undiplomatic comments since becoming ambassador earlier this year. In February, he accused Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi of violating the US-brokered peace deal between Jerusalem and Cairo, profiting from the desperation of Palestinians seeking to flee the Gaza Strip and duplicitously operating to benefit Hamas.
The comments castigating Egypt and its leader were quite out of the ordinary, particularly since the start of the Gaza war, during which Jerusalem has sought to maintain a working relationship with Cairo, which has been one of the mediators between Israel and Hamas to secure the release of Israeli hostages seized by the Palestinian terror group during its October 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war.
The comments angered Cairo, which later raised them during a meeting with Netanyahu’s top confidante Ron Dermer, according to an Israeli official and a second source familiar with the matter.
The Haaretz daily later reported that the military was examining who was behind articles and social media reports alleging Egypt was deploying forces to the Sinai Peninsula in violation of the peace agreement with Israel. Senior officials quoted in the report said they would not rule out the possibility that the reports were a Qatari effort to weaken Egypt’s position as a mediator vis-a-vis the United States, charges which Qatar has denied.
Tapped by Netanyahu in November to be the ambassador to Washington, Leiter is a pro-settlements activist and was one of the first residents of the Admot Yishai neighborhood founded in 1984 in Hebron. Two years later he founded an organization to support settlement in the flashpoint West Bank city, which is divided between Israeli and Palestinian Authority control. He also previously served as an aide to Netanyahu when the latter was finance minister and unsuccessfully ran for the Knesset in 2009 as a member of the prime minister’s Likud party.