Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu walked into the subterranean event hall at Jerusalem’s Orient Hotel on Tuesday night looking determinedly upbeat. He had arrived to present the candidates he personally handpicked for reserved spots on the Likud slate, but the celebratory atmosphere was overshadowed by outside events.
Netanyahu was carrying the weight of two major diplomatic and security crises that had landed on his desk within hours of each other. That morning brought an explosive report in Haaretz revealing that United Arab Emirates President Mohammed bin Zayed had spoken with Netanyahu in late September 2023, explicitly warning him of Hamas’s violent intentions.
Just a few hours later, announcements began pouring in from Western capitals declaring coordinated decisions to bar trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
As if that were not enough, minor turmoil erupted later that afternoon at a Likud Secretariat meeting held just prior to the candidates’ launch event. MK David Bitan refused to shake Defense Minister Israel Katz’s hand, drawing a barrage of curses and insults from several furious members of the secretariat.
I asked the prime minister whether he had indeed spoken with bin Zayed just weeks before the massacre and had received that unequivocal warning. Netanyahu dismissed the report as a “complete lie,” waving his hands vigorously to bat the premise away. An associate of the prime minister subsequently added that there is no audio recording to prove such a conversation ever took place.
