An online influence campaign to improve Qatar’s image in Israel and abroad that was produced and advanced by key suspects in the so-called Qatargate affair continued even after the October 7 Hamas atrocities in 2023, Haaretz reported on Monday.
The campaign was allegedly run by Perception, a company owned by former Likud adviser Yisrael Einhorn, who brought in Jonatan Urich — a close aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and a central suspect in the investigation into ties between the controversial Gulf state and people in the Prime Minister’s Office — who was released to house arrest last week.
Qatar paid for the campaign by transferring money to a company owned by a former Mossad official — whose name cannot be revealed — and by former IDF spokesperson Yoav Mordechai, via a UK subsidiary. That company hired Perception and another company called Koios, which operated the campaign.
The campaign was originally created to boost Qatar’s image leading up to the 2022 soccer World Cup, which was hosted by the tiny, wealthy Gulf state.
The so-called “digital assets” that were created for the campaign, however, remained in use after the championship ended, including after the outbreak of the ongoing war in Gaza, and with reference to specific wartime issues, such as Qatar’s role in mediating hostage-ceasefire talks.
Fake news websites and apparently fake social media accounts created for the campaign curated messages about Qatar’s positive role in the Middle East, including following the October 7 invasion and massacres. The items denied Doha’s close ties to Hamas and its funding for the terror group, the Haaretz report said.
Dozens of pro-Qatar articles and social media entries were posted as part of the campaign since the outbreak of the war, Haaretz reported.
One website, called Worldwide & Business News (WBN), hosted in the Philippines, contained some 30 pro-Qatar articles. Most were published leading up to the World Cup, but several were published after the Hamas attack.
Those articles had headlines including “Qatar’s Important Role as an Impartial Mediator in the Middle East,” and “Inside the Negotiations of the Qatari-mediated Israel-Hamas Cease-Fire.”
In March, Haaretz sent an inquiry to the person who had registered the WBN domain. All of the articles about Qatar were subsequently removed.
Another digital asset was a blog on the Medium platform by someone named Yehoshua Rotschild, which has published at least 13 pro-Qatar posts since the October 7 attack, including many that praise the emirate’s role in hostage negotiations and denigrate other mediators, such as Egypt.
In late 2024, false reports emerged that Egypt was deploying additional military forces to the Sinai desert, in violation of its peace treaty with Israel. The Haaretz report cited senior IDF officials as noting that Qatari actors may have been behind the claims, and said on Monday that police were investigating that possibility.
Perception, the firm owned by Netanyahu adviser Einhorn — who lives in Serbia, and thus has yet to be questioned as part of the investigation, despite coming under police suspicion — called the Haaretz report “misleading and inaccurate in its details.”
“The work was done on behalf of senior former officials in the security establishment. Perception was never involved in operating the campaign and has no connection to those who operate it.”
The statement added that “Qatar’s international success as a mediator is undisputed. Qatar has successfully mediated hostage/prisoner deals between Russia and Ukraine, Venezuela and the US, the US and the Taliban, France and Iraq, Djibouti and Eritrea, and of course between Israel and Hamas.”
Koios did not respond to the report.
Lawyers for Urich did not respond to the most recent report, but have denied their client ever “acted or received payment on Qatar’s behalf in Israel.” A lawyer for the unnamed Mossad official also denied any wrongdoing on the part of his client.