Netanyahu Turns on Abu Dhabi — The October 7 Warning That Exposed a Growing Israel–UAE Power Struggle

A political bombshell surrounding the failures that preceded October 7 has opened an unexpected confrontation at the heart of the Israel–UAE relationship.

What began as an Israeli media investigation into whether UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed personally warned Benjamin Netanyahu that Hamas was preparing a major operation has rapidly escalated into something much larger. Netanyahu and his Likud party are now accusing Mohammed Dahlan, the Palestinian political figure based in Abu Dhabi and closely associated with the Emirati leadership, of helping engineer the story as part of what Likud calls “blatant foreign interference” in Israel’s elections.

Dark Box assesses that the importance of this affair extends far beyond the question of whether one telephone call took place in September 2023.

For the first time, Netanyahu’s political camp is publicly constructing a narrative in which a figure embedded in Abu Dhabi’s Palestinian political network is not merely an intermediary or regional player, but an actor allegedly attempting to influence the composition of Israel’s next government.

If Likud’s accusation is taken seriously, the implication is extraordinary: Netanyahu’s own party is effectively alleging that political interests operating from the UAE are trying to remove him from power.

If the accusation is false, the implications are scarcely less important: Netanyahu has chosen to drag Abu Dhabi and one of its closest Palestinian political allies into his domestic battle over responsibility for October 7.

Either interpretation points toward growing distrust beneath one of the Middle East’s most celebrated strategic partnerships.

The report that detonated the crisis

The controversy began with an investigation by Haaretz journalists Shlomi Eldar and Ruth Yuval, based on reporting for their book on the hostage crisis.

According to the investigation, Mohamed bin Zayed telephoned Netanyahu roughly ten days before the October 7, 2023 attack. During a conversation reportedly lasting approximately 45 minutes, the Emirati president warned Netanyahu that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was preparing a major operation capable of producing extensive bloodshed, destabilizing the region and threatening the Abraham Accords.

The report says Netanyahu reacted calmly, suggested the more immediate danger was likely to emerge in the occupied West Bank and assured bin Zayed that Israel was prepared.

More damaging politically, the investigation alleges that Netanyahu did not subsequently relay the warning to Israel’s senior security leadership.

The report is based on multiple foreign sources familiar with the alleged exchange. Eldar has publicly defended his investigation, saying he worked on the material for approximately a year and a half and possesses documents, records and confidential sources supporting his account.

Netanyahu categorically denies it.

His office called the story an “absolute lie” and said Netanyahu neither spoke with bin Zayed during the relevant period nor received such a warning.

But Abu Dhabi’s response was notably different.

The UAE Foreign Ministry did not confirm the alleged conversation, but neither did it issue the unequivocal denial Netanyahu might have wanted. Instead, it said it would not comment on speculation concerning conversations between leaders, while emphasizing that Emirati and Israeli government bodies have maintained open and direct communication and that relevant intelligence has been shared between the two countries when necessary.

That carefully constructed response matters.

It does not prove the Haaretz account. But neither does it rescue Netanyahu from it.

And that appears to have helped transform an Israeli intelligence-failure controversy into a political confrontation touching Abu Dhabi itself.

Netanyahu’s counterattack: Mohammed Dahlan

Within a day, Netanyahu’s camp dramatically changed the direction of the story.

Instead of continuing to argue only that the alleged warning never occurred, Likud alleged that the real scandal was “blatant foreign interference in Israel’s elections.”

The party named Mohammed Dahlan.

Dahlan is a former senior Fatah figure who has lived in the UAE for years and developed close relationships with the Emirati leadership. His political networks, knowledge of Gaza and long-standing relationship with Abu Dhabi have repeatedly placed him at the intersection of Emirati policy and Palestinian politics.

Likud alleged that Dahlan was behind the Haaretz story because he wants Netanyahu’s right-wing government removed and ultimately hopes to establish himself as a major political actor in postwar Gaza.

The party went further.

It claimed Dahlan needs a weaker Israeli government involving figures such as Gadi Eisenkot, Yair Golan and Avigdor Liberman because such a coalition could withdraw from Gaza and create conditions in which Dahlan might return to political influence there.

No public evidence has been produced establishing this alleged plan.

Dahlan’s political movement has denied the accusation, calling Likud’s claims misleading and arguing that Netanyahu is attempting to divert attention from his own responsibility for the October 7 failures.

But the accusation itself is politically explosive.

Netanyahu is no longer simply fighting Haaretz.

His party is alleging that a powerful Palestinian figure operating from the UAE is participating in an effort to determine who governs Israel.

The UAE suddenly enters Israel’s election battlefield

This is where the affair becomes strategically important.

Israel’s election is scheduled for October 27, and Netanyahu’s responsibility for the October 7 intelligence and security catastrophe is among the most dangerous issues facing him.

The Haaretz allegation goes directly to the center of his political vulnerability.

Netanyahu has spent years arguing that Israel’s security establishment failed to provide him with adequate warning. The new report presents the opposite possibility: that a warning reached him personally from one of Israel’s closest regional partners and was not acted upon or sufficiently shared.

Opposition leaders immediately seized on the story.

For Netanyahu, therefore, destroying the credibility of the report is not simply reputation management. It may be electoral survival.

But his chosen defense has created a new problem.

By accusing Dahlan of engineering the affair from his base in the Emirates, Likud has effectively introduced Abu Dhabi into Israel’s election campaign.

The party has not accused Mohamed bin Zayed personally of directing an election-interference operation. That distinction is essential.

Yet Dahlan is not politically associated with some distant country unrelated to the controversy. He is based in the same state whose president allegedly delivered the warning at the center of the Haaretz investigation.

The result is an extraordinary triangle: Netanyahu, Mohamed bin Zayed and Mohammed Dahlan.

At its center sits the unanswered question of what Abu Dhabi knew before October 7, what it communicated to Israel and why the Emirati leadership is unwilling, at least publicly, to give Netanyahu the categorical denial his political defense would benefit from.

Likud expands the alleged network

Netanyahu’s party has gone even further.

Likud alleged that journalist Shlomi Eldar received payment from a left-leaning organization connected to political circles around Yair Golan’s Democrats and suggested this was connected to the promotion of the October 7 investigation.

Israeli Channel 14 subsequently reported that Eldar acknowledged receiving funds from Darkenu in connection with media content. But the existence of payment does not itself establish that the Haaretz investigation was fabricated, commissioned by the UAE, or produced as part of foreign election interference.

That evidentiary distinction is critical.

Likud also pointed to reported visits by Yair Golan and former Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar to the UAE roughly two months earlier and publicly asked whether those contacts were connected to the Haaretz publication.

Again, the party has not publicly produced evidence establishing such a connection.

The significance is therefore not that Netanyahu has exposed a proven Emirati conspiracy.

He has not.

The significance is that Israel’s governing party is now publicly constructing an alleged political network connecting Dahlan in Abu Dhabi, an Israeli investigative journalist, opposition political circles and visits by senior Israeli figures to the UAE.

Likud has demanded criminal investigations into Eldar, co-author Ruth Yuval, Haaretz, Yair Golan and the Democrats over suspected attempts to interfere with the election in cooperation with foreign actors.

This is no longer a normal dispute over journalism.

It is an accusation of foreign political warfare.

Is Netanyahu indirectly accusing Abu Dhabi?

This is the question Netanyahu may prefer not to answer explicitly.

If Dahlan truly orchestrated the publication, as Likud alleges, what exactly was Abu Dhabi’s role?

Did Dahlan act independently?

Did Emirati officials know?

Did information originating within Emirati political or intelligence circles reach the journalists?

Or is Netanyahu simply using Dahlan’s residence and political relationships in the UAE to construct a foreign-interference narrative capable of neutralizing a damaging report before the election?

There is currently no public evidence establishing that Mohamed bin Zayed or the UAE government directed Dahlan to influence Israeli politics.

Dark Box therefore does not make that claim.

But Netanyahu’s own accusation creates the question.

Once the Israeli prime minister’s party says the man “behind” a politically explosive October 7 story is a Palestinian power broker based in Abu Dhabi, it becomes impossible to treat the controversy as purely domestic Israeli politics.

Netanyahu himself has internationalized it.

The deeper fracture: Abu Dhabi may no longer need Netanyahu

There is also a larger strategic issue.

The Abraham Accords created a durable state-to-state relationship between Israel and the UAE, but that does not mean Mohamed bin Zayed’s interests are permanently tied to Benjamin Netanyahu personally.

This distinction may now be becoming visible.

Abu Dhabi invested heavily in normalization with Israel because of security, intelligence, technology, trade and regional power calculations. Those interests can survive a change of government in Jerusalem.

Netanyahu, by contrast, has frequently presented Arab normalization as one of his greatest personal strategic achievements.

The two interests are not identical.

The UAE needs a functional relationship with Israel.

It does not necessarily need Netanyahu.

And if Abu Dhabi concludes that Netanyahu has become an obstacle to regional stability, economic interests, Palestinian political arrangements or its broader international strategy, maintaining the Israeli relationship while quietly diversifying its Israeli political contacts would be rational statecraft.

That does not prove Emirati election interference.

It does, however, explain why contacts with figures outside Netanyahu’s camp should not automatically be surprising.

States hedge.

Abu Dhabi does so particularly aggressively.

The UAE has built influence precisely by maintaining relationships across competing political, commercial, security and media networks rather than betting exclusively on one individual.

Netanyahu may now be discovering that normalization with Abu Dhabi never meant political loyalty to Netanyahu.

Dahlan is the most sensitive point in the relationship

Mohammed Dahlan makes the affair even more combustible because Gaza sits at the center of the postwar political struggle.

For years, Dahlan’s name has periodically surfaced in speculation about alternative Palestinian political arrangements, particularly involving Gaza.

Likud is exploiting precisely that history.

Its narrative is straightforward: Dahlan wants Netanyahu removed because a different Israeli government could eventually withdraw from Gaza and facilitate a political arrangement that restores Dahlan’s influence.

But that claim should not be confused with established evidence.

There is no publicly demonstrated Dahlan plan, backed by Abu Dhabi, to manipulate Israel’s 2026 election and seize Gaza afterward.

What is established is that Netanyahu’s party is now publicly portraying Dahlan as an adversarial political operator trying to reshape Israeli power.

That alone represents a significant change in rhetoric toward a figure deeply embedded in the UAE’s regional network.

The accusation also exposes the profound distrust surrounding the question of who will govern Gaza.

Israel wants to determine Gaza’s postwar political structure.

The UAE wants influence over the regional order that emerges from the war.

Palestinian factions want to prevent externally imposed leadership.

And Dahlan’s name continues to appear whenever outside powers discuss possible alternatives for Gaza.

The battle over October 7 is therefore intersecting with the battle over October 8: who controls the political future after the war.

Two competing versions — both politically dangerous

Dark Box identifies two principal possibilities.

The first is that the Haaretz investigation is substantially accurate.

If so, Mohamed bin Zayed possessed sufficiently alarming information before October 7 to personally warn Netanyahu, Netanyahu failed to treat that warning with appropriate urgency, and the Israeli prime minister is now attempting to destroy the credibility of the story by framing it as an Emirati-linked election operation.

That scenario would deepen questions about Netanyahu’s responsibility for Israel’s greatest security failure in decades.

The second possibility is that Netanyahu is correct that political actors connected to Dahlan helped push the story into the Israeli information environment for electoral purposes.

If evidence eventually substantiates that claim, it would raise serious questions about UAE-based political networks seeking influence over the outcome of Israel’s election.

But even then, Netanyahu would face another question.

Why has the UAE itself not simply issued an unequivocal denial that Mohamed bin Zayed warned him?

Abu Dhabi’s carefully worded statement — refusing to discuss leaders’ conversations while emphasizing continuing intelligence exchanges — leaves the central allegation unresolved.

For Netanyahu, that ambiguity is politically toxic.

From strategic partners to competing power centers

The broader lesson is that the Israel–UAE relationship should no longer be viewed through the simplistic language of the Abraham Accords.

Israel and the UAE remain strategic partners.

They cooperate because they share interests.

But partners can also compete.

Abu Dhabi has its own ambitions in Gaza, the Red Sea, Sudan, the Horn of Africa and the wider Arab order. Israel has its own security architecture and territorial objectives. Their interests overlap extensively, but they are not identical.

The October 7 warning controversy may be exposing what happens when those interests diverge.

Netanyahu appears to be signaling that political networks operating from the Emirates cannot be allowed to influence Israel’s internal political order.

Abu Dhabi, meanwhile, has conspicuously declined to provide the simple denial that would close down the most damaging allegation against him.

That is not yet a diplomatic rupture.

But it is evidence of political friction.

And it demonstrates that the alliance between Netanyahu and Mohamed bin Zayed may be considerably more transactional than its public image suggests.

Dark Box conclusion: the warning is only half the story

The immediate question is whether Mohamed bin Zayed warned Netanyahu before October 7.

That must be investigated independently.

But the political explosion that followed may ultimately reveal something equally important.

Netanyahu has transformed an accusation about his own failure to act on intelligence into an allegation that a Palestinian power broker based in the UAE is attempting to interfere in Israel’s election.

He has named Mohammed Dahlan.

He has connected the affair to Israeli opposition figures.

His party has pointed toward secretive contacts in Abu Dhabi.

And it has demanded criminal investigations into journalists and political opponents for alleged cooperation with foreign actors.

None of this proves an Emirati operation against Netanyahu.

But Netanyahu’s own accusations have broken an important taboo: his political camp is now openly presenting a network centered on a prominent Abu Dhabi-based figure as a potential threat to Israeli political sovereignty.

That should be watched carefully.

Because beneath the argument over one alleged telephone call lies a much larger struggle: Netanyahu’s political survival, Mohamed bin Zayed’s regional calculations, Dahlan’s possible future role, the battle over postwar Gaza and the question of how deeply Abu Dhabi is prepared to involve itself in Israel’s political landscape.

The most important unanswered questions are therefore no longer limited to what Netanyahu knew before October 7.

They are also:

What does Abu Dhabi know now?

Why has it refused to unequivocally extinguish the story?

What precisely is Mohammed Dahlan’s role in the information chain behind the Haaretz investigation?

What were Israeli opposition and former security figures discussing during their reported contacts in the Emirates?

And is Netanyahu’s attack on Dahlan simply an electoral defense mechanism — or the first public sign of a deeper struggle between Netanyahu and the Emirati power network he once presented as proof of his greatest diplomatic success?

Dark Box assesses that the evidence does not yet establish an Emirati campaign to remove Netanyahu.

But something politically significant has already happened.

The relationship has crossed a threshold.

Netanyahu is no longer merely defending himself against an Israeli newspaper.

He is pointing toward Abu Dhabi.