Pinkas denied ever having taken money from Qatar that influenced his writing and insisted that his opinions were all his own.
By Dinah Bucholz, Jewish Breaking News
A journalist for the far-left Israeli newspaper Haaretz was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by an American lobbyist for Qatar to promote Qatari talking points.
Jay Footlik, the lobbyist, funneled the payments to Alon Pinkas, who was told to boost five key ideas: Qatar hosted Hamas at the request of Israel and the United States; Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had requested that Qatar send money to Hamas; Egypt is to blame for the October 7 attack because it smuggled weapons to Hamas; Qatar must be the mediator in hostage release deals instead of Egypt; and Qatar is a key strategic military partner to both the United States and Israel in the Middle East.
The former Israeli consul general in New York followed through with an article titled “Netanyahu wants to make Qatar the fall guy for the October 7 Massacre. Don’t Let Him,” published in Haaretz two years ago on Jan. 1, 2024. In that piece, Pinkas obediently echoed nearly all five talking points.
“First, Hamas committed the atrocities, not Qatar,” he wrote.
“Second, Qatar funneled money into Gaza to maintain the Hamas regime at Israel’s request. Third, when Qatar was deliberating whether to stop the payments in 2018, Israel sent high-level emissaries to Doha to plead with the Qataris to continue. Fourth, Qatar is indispensable in mediating the release of Israeli hostages. It has done so already and continues to do so. Fifth, in the broader geopolitical dimensions of a postwar Middle East, Qatar could and should be a central part of the solution, and certainly not the problem.”
However, Pinkas did not receive the money directly from Footlik but instead from a middleman named Gil Birger, who had previously been questioned by the authorities over his possible connections to funneling Qatari money to aides of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Pinkas denied ever having taken money from Qatar that influenced his writing and insisted that his opinions were all his own.
“I did not work for Footlik. I provided professional services to a company he owns, as I have done for other clients in Israel and abroad,” he said.
“My financial reports are filed with the authorities in accordance with the law. I took part in no campaign… I have known Footlik for 25 years. I was asked to assist him in the context of the return of the hostages and the deceased held by Hamas, to introduce him to hostage families and to a number of journalists (including at Haaretz), and to prepare three policy papers on scenarios for ending the war in Gaza.”
“In 2024, I wrote two pieces in which I offered analysis regarding Qatar as an essential mediator,” he explained.
“That was, to the best of my knowledge at the time—and still is today—also the position of the prime minister, the security cabinet, the government’s Hostages Directorate and the head of the Mossad.”
Pinkas said that Footlik had requested two things: to find out the positions of members of Congress on the Israel-Gaza war and to find out how the war might affect other states, like Morocco, that were not associated with Qatar.
He said that he understood why his acceptance of payments from Birger could cast suspicion on his writing but insisted that he had done his due diligence by investigating the matter and concluding that he had not violated any laws.
This is not the first time Haaretz has been embroiled in such a scandal. David Saig, who has been implicated in what is now known as the Qatargate scandal—in which several aides to Netanyahu accepted Qatari money to help peddle Qatari influence—wrote a column for Haaretz denouncing Egypt for its role in the October 7 attack while extolling Qatar.
In October, the paper dismissed Chaim Levenson for accepting Qatari money as well. He was alleged to have been paid 200,000 Israeli shekels ($61,000) from Yisrael Einhorn, who has also been implicated in the Qatargate scandal.
Pinkas later left Haaretz after these revelations.
The post Haaretz journalist paid by Qatar lobbyist to promote regime talking points appeared first on World Israel News.