“Qatar is the biggest terrorist bank in the world”: a campaign against the patron of Hamas

In the pro-Israeli networks, a network campaign was launched yesterday against Qatar, the tiny Persian principality that is also known as the patron of the terrorist organization Hamas. The campaign is organized under the hashtag #alleyesonqatar (“all eyes on Qatar”), which according to the organizers has received tens of thousands of interactions and the potential of spreading millions of visitors around the world.

Some of the content that surfaced in the campaign dealt with Doha’s sponsorship of Hamas and the connection of the Farzian principality to the Shiva massacre in October, as well as its involvement in the education system in the United States and the role of the local media network Al-Jazeera, which is owned by the royal house and serves as a mouthpiece to spread the emir’s messages, echoing anti-Semitism , Holocaust denial and touching on explosive issues with the first intention.

The hashtag reached the trending list on Twitter and was used by influencers in the pro-Israel world, such as the popular “Mossad” parodic account, Moshik Gulst, Eitan Fishberger, Melissa Chapman, and even an account bearing the name of the Likud party branch in Great Britain. It was also used by non-Jewish influencers such as Tamer Masaudin and non-Israelis such as the “Vishgrad 24” channel and the Indian author and blogger Sankrant Sanu.

The campaign is promoted by Brightmind Israel, an organization whose goal is to generate influence through digital assets in networks that serve the Jewish people. Ella Kenan, the founder of Brightmind Israel, told about the background and the idea behind it.

“Throughout the war, Qatar tries to position itself as a conciliator and mediator, when in fact it is the financier of the murder and kidnapping of our loved ones. It is not a ‘neutral mediator’, but one that shines Palestinian flags on its buildings and radiates Photos of Haniyeh and Sinwar in the streets,” Keenan said.

“All this while it is also the largest donor to universities in the West, with an emphasis on history and Middle Eastern departments. A study recently came out that showed that wherever it donates – the program changes sharply to an anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic tone,” she emphasized.

“Qatar is also a financier of the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is an arm, and has a connection to the financing of al-Qaeda. Beyond that, it also spreads fake news through Al-Jazeera.”

To the question of the specific timing of the campaign, Keenan mentioned that yesterday, December 18, was Qatar’s “national holiday” (a holiday marking the unification of the country at the end of the 19th century, AD). “Qatar deals a lot with its image, and that’s why we decided today, in preparation for its ‘national holiday’, to present and reveal to the world that it is the world’s largest terrorist bank; that on the one hand it ‘buys’ the West and hosts the largest US military base in the region – and on the other hand Funds terrorism against the West, incitement against Western values ​​and more.”

Keenan added that Qatar’s ownership of institutions, organizations and assets throughout the West actually leads to the silencing of criticism towards it. “The main points raised in the campaign were, first of all, Qatar’s share in financing al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, as well as pointing to the fact that its ‘buying’ of properties in the West aims to create a nice image and silence criticism,” Keenan added.

“In addition to this, we wanted to expose Al-Jazeera’s malicious enterprise against the West, with Qatar wisely separating the channel in Arabic, which sometimes amounts to ‘One Thousand and One Nights’ – and Al-Jazeera in English, which is presented by Europeans with polished accents Their rant is simply anti-Western and anti-Israeli – and AJ+, which is a platform established on social networks for young people in 2010, and the goal Hers is to brainwash young people in the West against their countries and instill agendas against Jews and Israel.”

And weren’t you afraid that the campaign would harm the mediation efforts to reach a kidnapping deal?
“Those who are currently leading the mediation efforts are the Egyptians, and as soon as we realized that after 14 months Qatar’s location is no longer central, we decided to go for it,” she explained.

Keenan stated that the campaign reached millions of views and accounts with hundreds of thousands and also millions of followers uploaded content they published in “Brightmind”. “The hashtag will go viral abroad and we would be happy for more people to join our communities to generate additional influence and reveal the truth,” she concluded.

Dr. Ariel Admoni, an expert on Qatar, welcomed the existence of the campaign.

“Qatar is a PR country,” explained Admoni. Due to this understanding, Qatar invests a lot in painting itself on the ‘right’ side of supporters of sports, art, green energy ventures and a sympathetic attitude towards it in the academic discourse. As part of that approach, Qatar used both old media tools and social media platforms, with an emphasis on using network influencers as well.”

To the question of Qatar’s sensitivity in the context of mediating negotiations for a hostage deal, Admoni replied: “Campaigns to change public opinion against Doha have always worried the Qatari government. The Qatari response included direct condemnations from senior government officials, responding with counter-campaigns and using researchers linked to it in order to present the campaigns as an initiative of Israeli or American interest groups. Another response was the Qatari threat to withdraw from the negotiations, reasoning that their involvement in the negotiations exposed them to unprecedented criticism,” he explained.

But according to Admoni, this is an empty threat. “It’s a kind of ‘hold me,’ because Qatar has made many geopolitical and economic gains from the role of mediator. Furthermore, these gains have meant that the Qatari interest, as of now, is the continuation of the contacts and more and more, and not the actual success of the contacts. All this alongside support for Hamas On the part of many figures in the Qatari government – this means that, as of now, Qatar has no real interest in reaching a successful negotiation result.”

Finally, Admoni emphasized that he believes that even if in the short term Qatar may react strongly to a campaign against it and claim that this harms the kidnapping deal – then “a pressure campaign is the only way to bring about a real change in the success of the negotiations”.