If reports are accurate that senior advisers close to Israel’s prime minister received Qatar-linked payments, this is not politics as usual. It is a test of national loyalty, moral clarity, and Israel’s ability to defend itself from malign influence warfare.
If the reports are accurate that senior advisors close to Benjamin Netanyahu received payments connected-directly or indirectly-to Qatar, and actually fabricated media reports to promote Qatar's interests, then Israel is facing something far more serious than an embarrassing political controversy. This is not a matter of optics or spin. It is a national-security warning flare.
Qatar’s alleged use of figures in the Prime Minister’s most innermost sanctum directly affects the very security of the citizens of Israel.
No country at war can tolerate the suspicion that a hostile foreign power may have purchased influence inside the highest levels of its leadership ecosystem. And Qatar is not a neutral actor. It is not a benevolent mediator floating above the conflict. It is the principal state sponsor and host of Hamas, whose leaders reside comfortably in Doha while Israelis mourn the dead of October 7-mass murder, rape, torture, and kidnapping carried out with genocidal intent.
That massacre should have ended all ambiguity. After October 7, there is no morally defensible gray zone about Qatar’s role. A regime that continues to host Hamas leadership and funds its war against Israeli civilians after such atrocities has chosen its side.That is why Netanyahu authorized the bombing of Hamas figures in Doha that led to freeing the hostages.
Which is precisely why the current allegations are so alarming.
Influence warfare, not diplomacy
Qatar has spent years mastering a modern form of warfare: influence. Rather than confronting Israel directly on the battlefield, Doha has invested heavily in reputation laundering, narrative control, and access-buying across Western capitals, college campuses, and elite think-tanks and institutions. This is not conspiracy. It is strategy.
At the center of that strategy sits Al Jazeera, a state-funded, Der Sturmer-style media outlet that functions less as independent journalism and more as a soft-power instrument of Qatari foreign policy that defames Israel with the most grotesque lies imaginable on a daily basis. Al Jazeera has repeatedly amplified Hamas narratives, minimized Jewish suffering, normalized antisemitic tropes, and framed Israeli self-defense as criminality under the banner of “context” and “resistance.”
Narratives matter. They shape public opinion, diplomatic pressure, and ultimately the space in which Israel is allowed to defend itself. Qatar understands this. That is why it spends billions not just on weapons proxies, but on words.
My multi-year warning about Qatar’s Jewish laundering operation
For years-long before October 7-I warned that Qatar was deliberately seeking to launder its image through Jewish intermediaries, institutions, and influencers. Right-wing Jewish leaders like Malcolm Hoenlein, Alan Dershowitz, published in The Hill that Qatar is as righteous as Israel, Qatar's goal was simple: borrow Jewish credibility - especially from the right wing - and soften scrutiny of Doha’s sponsorship of Islamist extremism.
This campaign took many forms. Paid or subsidized trips to Doha. Lavish conferences dressed up as “dialogue.” Business relationships framed as peacemaking. Donations routed through friendly faces. The common thread was always the same: access in exchange for legitimacy.
I publicly challenged this effort even when it was deeply uncomfortable to do so. I warned about paid lobbyists and bridges between Qatar and Jewish or pro-Israel circles. I warned that these relationships were not neutral, that influence was being monetized, and that allegations of substantial payments and preferential access deserved serious scrutiny.
To be precise: not every participant in Qatar-linked initiatives necessarily understood the full scope of Doha’s agenda. Influence operations succeed precisely because they are designed to feel respectable. But ignorance does not erase consequence. When a terror-sponsoring regime allegedly purchases validators, it is not seeking peace-it is buying silence, hesitation, and moral confusion.
Too many people accepted the invitations, too many enjoyed the access. Too many repeated the talking points about Qatar as a “moderating force,” even as Hamas leaders continued to enjoy Qatari hospitality.
When influence allegedly reaches Israel’s inner circle
This is what makes the current reporting so explosive. If advisers close to Israel’s prime minister were financially entangled with Qatar-whether through lobbyists, PR firms, consulting arrangements, or intermediaries-then Doha’s influence operation did not stop in Washington or European capitals. It allegedly reached into Israel itself.
Even if every transaction were technically legal, the ethical breach would remain as an abomination. You cannot advise Israel’s leader while receiving money connected to a regime that bankrolls and shelters those who murder Jews. There is no acceptable gray zone here. Loyalty is not a technicality.
The longevity and centrality of Netanyahu’s tenure and the challenges he faces mean that the standards of his inner circle matter enormously. Israelis deserve a full and transparent accounting. If advisers crossed a red line, they must be removed-permanently. And they must be prosecuted. Not reassigned. Not defended with procedural arguments. Not shielded by attacks on the press.
Anything less sends a catastrophic signal: that enemy money can buy proximity to power.
October 7 ended the excuses
October 7 should have vaporized every remaining euphemism. After that day, no one can credibly claim that Qatar is merely a complicated actor trying to calm the region. A regime that hosts Hamas leadership after mass slaughter is not mediating conflict; it is sustaining it.
Any Israeli official or adviser who cannot draw a clean line after October 7 has forfeited moral standing.
Why this matters to Jews everywhere
Diaspora Jews are watching closely. They are fighting Qatar-funded narratives on hostile campuses, confronting Al Jazeera propaganda online, and defending Israel in increasingly toxic environments. They should not have to wonder whether the same influence campaign they are resisting abroad has penetrated Israel’s own corridors of power.
According to a leading expose in The New York Times, my wife and I had our emails hacked by Qatar as punishment for my unrelenting opposition to Qatar and its influence campaign.
Israel’s soldiers are watching too. So are its enemies.
Influence warfare only works when red lines blur. Qatar bet that money could buy access, confusion, and silence. That bet must fail.
Israel was built by people who understood that survival requires moral clarity, especially when it is inconvenient. The Jewish state cannot afford advisers who serve two masters, or institutions that treat hostile-state money as merely another funding stream.
Draw the line-now
This moment demands seriousness, not spin.
There must be a full investigation. Follow the money. Identify intermediaries. Expose pipelines. No political protection. No tribal defensiveness. If Qatar succeeded in embedding itself inside government offices, the public deserves to know how-and who enabled it.
History is unforgiving to nations that fail to draw red lines when they matter most. Israel’s enemies are watching. Its allies are watching. And its people are watching.
As President Trump said, without Bibi’s leadership over the last two years, Israel might have been lost. Bibi triumphed in a six-front war, unprecedented in the annals of warfare. Furthermore, I agree with what President Trump said recently before the Israeli Knesset that I could not give a damn about cigars and champagne, and dragging Netanyahu, three times a week, into court while he is fighting Israel’s most serious ever war is a national disgrace. But now, if the allegations are proven true, he has to clean out his own office.
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach-“America’s Rabbi”-is the international bestselling author of 36 books and is described by The Washington Post and Newsweek as “the most famous rabbi in America,” by The New York Observer as “the most famous orthodox Jew in the world,” and by The Jerusalem Post as one of the 50 most influential Jews alive. Founder of the Oxford University L’Chaim Society, he is the only rabbi ever to win the London Times “Preacher of the Year” competition and is the recipient of the American Jewish Press Association’s highest award for excellence in commentary. He is founder of The World Values Network, which champions Jewish values and fights antisemitism worldwide. Follow him on Instagram and “X” @RabbiShmuley