Abu Dhabi says it will not join Israel's political debate after a report claimed Mohammed bin Zayed warned Netanyahu before October 7.
The Prime Minister's Office on Tuesday strongly denied the Haaretz report, which alleged that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was warned by the United Arab Emirates about Hamas's October 7 attack, writing that the "press reports are false."
"No warning was given to the Prime Minister from the United Arab Emirates before October 7th. If there was any relevant information, it was passed through intelligence channels between the two countries," the PMO stated.
The UAE Foreign Ministry also published a statement on the report, saying it refuses to comment on "speculation" about whether the two countries spoke. Notably, however, the UAE did not confirm or deny the Haaretz report.
"UAE and Israeli government entities have maintained open and direct lines of communication since the inception of the relationship more than five years ago. When necessary, all relevant intelligence has been and continues to be communicated between the relevant entities."
UAE officials also indicated that, from their perspective, it is not their role to issue a denial in response to every media report published in Israel. The message conveyed was that the UAE does not interfere in Israeli elections and will not serve as the government's "public relations office."
In a conversation with Ben Caspit on 103FM on Tuesday, Yinon Magal presented the prime minister's denial and said Netanyahu maintained that no such conversation had taken place.
Magal said that if such an event had indeed occurred, it could also be verified with the head of the National Security Council and other officials who would have been expected to know about the conversation.
Caspit, by contrast, said he was convinced that the report was credible. He said former prime minister Naftali Bennett, who is close to bin Zayed, had confirmed the account, and argued that the fact that officials in Abu Dhabi had not rushed to deny the report further strengthened its credibility in his view.
"The Emirates is a tremendous ally of ours. If he remains silent, as far as I'm concerned, that is also a statement," Caspit said.
Caspit also linked the report to earlier warnings from Egypt before the attack.
"This joins the Egyptian warning that was published in a million places," he said, arguing that as more reports accumulated, they strengthened the picture, in his view, that actors outside Israel had warned of an unusual move by Hamas.
"The 'why didn't they wake him up' campaign is now becoming the question, 'why didn't he wake us up?'" Caspit said.
Caspit added that, in his assessment, Haaretz would not have published such a claim without cross-checking sources. He called for waiting to hear from former CIA director William Burns, who, according to the report, was also involved in warnings from bin Zayed.
Magal, however, rejected that argument, saying that if such a conversation had indeed taken place, there would have been documentation and records of it. Therefore, he said, it was difficult to believe that Netanyahu would issue such a sweeping denial.
"If there had been a conversation, the prime minister would not say there wasn't one, because there are records. Someone would already have leaked that it happened," Magal said.
Caspit again argued that the report fit, in his view, into a series of warnings and pieces of information that had accumulated before the attack. He added that the central question was now not only what the security agencies knew on the night between October 6 and 7, but also what warnings reached the political leadership in the weeks beforehand and what was done with them.
Recent reports have examined additional claims about warnings received before October 7, including accounts of Naftali Bennett confirming the UAE warning report and earlier reports of warnings from Israeli security officials.
The dispute between the two ended without agreement. Magal demanded evidence that the conversation with bin Zayed had in fact taken place, while Caspit argued that the collection of reports and sources strengthened the credibility of the report in his view.