Bank of Israel rejects Netanyahu's crypto plan to dodge sanctions three days before the election, as Bennett, Eisenkot and Liberman pile on

The Bank of Israel publicly rejected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's idea of using crypto and blockchain to get around possible banking sanctions, in a statement on Saturday reported by The Times of Israel. The bank said cryptocurrencies "cannot be used as a route for bypassing sanctions", that Israel's economy is best served by keeping its ties with its main trading partners and working to prevent sanctions, and that the matter sits with the political echelon.

Netanyahu had told Channel 10's economic network on Friday that banking sanctions against Israel were possible and that he had asked advisers to prepare a plan built on crypto and blockchain, after Britain and 11 other Western countries announced sanctions on goods from Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Startup Fortune, citing Ynet, reported that officials in economic ministries and the Prime Minister's Office said they knew of no such working group.

The opposition piled on. Gadi Eisenkot called the plan a threat to national security, Naftali Bennett called it a defeatist vision that would leave Israel isolated, and Avigdor Liberman said Netanyahu was disconnected from reality, that blockchain transactions are traceable, and that the prime minister had blocked crypto regulation in the Knesset, The Times of Israel reported.

Netanyahu responded on Channel 14 on Saturday that he hears the resistance and is taking it into account, while thanking the bank for its advice. The election is on Tuesday.