Several aides to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are accused of taking money from Qatar in return for portraying that regime positively and downplaying Egypt’s role as a mediator in hostage talks, a judge said Tuesday.
The latest controversy to roil Israeli politics involves a complicated intra-Arab rivalry, fought out on the terrain of Israeli and American politics, with Israeli officials and a Jewish American lobbying firm as unlikely intermediaries.
The “Qatargate” affair has seen several aides to Netanyahu arrested and questioned, and has even pulled in members of the media and the business world, though Netanyahu himself is not considered a suspect in the investigation.
The central allegation is that Qatar sent money to certain political aides in the Prime Minister’s office, while Qatar was also representing Hamas in a mediating role in efforts to free Israeli hostages. Egypt was also trying to mediate.
The innocent explanation for what happened is that Qatar was trying to move money to Gaza — as it had done before — through back channels as part of hostage negotiations. The darker explanation is that the intermediaries who were moving the money may have sought to benefit personally from the transactions — though they deny any wrongdoing.
Qatar has engaged for decades in a campaign to improve its image in the West. The regime, which has sponsored terrorist groups in the past, adjusted its strategy several years ago to lobby Jewish leaders and institutions in the U.S.
That strategy now seems to have extended to Israel, through an American lobbying firm that represents Qatar in the U.S. run by Jay Footlik, a former aide to President Bill Clinton. Footlik also advised John Kerry in his 2004 campaign.
The Times of Israel reported on the revelations by Judge Menachem Mizrachi:
In the period under investigation, Mizrahi wrote, an American lobbying company called The Third Circle — owned by Footlik — contacted [aide Eli] Feldstein in order to put a positive spin on Doha’s role as a facilitator in the negotiations for the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
The judge said that Qatar also wanted Feldstein to spread negative messaging about Egypt’s role in the negotiations.
[Aide Jonatan] Urich mediated between The Third Circle and Feldstein, who was compensated financially by Footlik through [businessman Gil] Birger, according to Mizrahi’s summation.
It appears that Netanyahu himself was unaware of the transactions, though the participants in the exchange are accused of having invoked the name of the Prime Minister’s office to give the deal an appearance of legitimacy.
The editor of the Jerusalem Post has also been questioned over contact he had with Feldstein about a trip to Qatar.
While the controversy does not appear to implicate Netanyahu, the fact that the affair touches on the issue of the hostage negotiations has inflamed political tensions in Israel. The next scheduled Israeli elections are in 2026.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
