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2025-02-12 Arabia
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'The Qatar Files': How the Sheikhs Hired People from Netanyahu's Circle
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Leonid Tsukanov
[REGNUM] Eli Feldstein, a former employee of the press department of the Israeli Prime Minister's Office who was taken into custody in November 2024, risks becoming a defendant in a new high-profile case. This time, Feldstein is accused of secretly helping Qatar.
Although the evidence base for the new case is somewhat shaky in places, it could cause far more damage to the prime minister's reputation than the situation with controlled leaks to the press from high offices.
PART-TIME FRIEND
As a press officer in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office, Feldstein spent several years combining government work with private practice, providing political consulting and branding services.
Qatar was also among his clients.
In particular, in the interests of Doha, Israeli consultants led by Feldstein developed a reputational protection strategy in preparation for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. And later, they helped partially regain the positions of Qatari brands in the Gulf market, lost as a result of the diplomatic crisis of 2017-2021.
It is noteworthy that with the beginning of the conflict with Hamas, Feldstein, using his official position, actively broadcast to the journalist pool the idea of Qatar’s “exceptional role” in resolving the crisis in Gaza.
And he did this so successfully that at some point the Israeli press itself began to put Qatar in the foreground, emphasizing its decisive contribution to the negotiations, compared to Egypt and Jordan.
Doha, for its part, only further multiplied positive news items, using for these purposes the capabilities of its own “pocket” media holding “Al Jazeera”.
However, the contract had to be hastily terminated in the fall of 2024, immediately after Feldstein’s arrest by Israeli security forces.
"EMPTY SPECULATION"
The first appearance of the "Qatar dossier" in the Israeli press raised questions rather than outrage.
Moreover, Feldstein, like the two other defendants in the “Qatar dossier” – Yonatan Urich (creative director of the Likud party’s campaign headquarters) and Srulik Einhorn (former Likud press secretary, adviser to the prime minister) – was active in international work and consulted not only Qatar, but also other potential partners of Israel in the Middle East and beyond.
If they had not used confidential materials from the Prime Minister's office for these purposes, such work could well have become part of the "backroom diplomacy" of the Jewish state.
However, the Hamas factor has made its own adjustments to the perception of the situation.
It quickly became clear that Qatar’s status as an “equidistant force” in the dialogue between Hamas and Israel was not just a coincidence and was “greatly exaggerated.” For example, Doha’s decision not to put pressure on Hamas’s “political office” was presented as “an act of flexibility and diplomacy.”
Also, by a strange coincidence, the scandal surrounding the Hamas training camps in the Syrian region of Afrin, in the construction of which Qatari contractors were allegedly involved, was very quickly hushed up.
A series of such coincidences only strengthened the conviction of the prosecution's supporters that the figures in the "Qatar dossier" helped Doha to nip international scandals "in the bud" until the very end, using documents from the prime minister's office for these purposes, among other things. Especially since all three could theoretically have used the corresponding access.
And although Feldstein’s lawyers call such conclusions “empty speculation,” the accused are still unable to explain how Qatar managed to respond to unpredictable crisis situations with minimal image losses.
An additional touch to the case is the fact that Urich and Einhorn are simultaneously suspects in the case of intimidation of official Shlomo Filber. The latter was allegedly forced to withdraw testimony about Netanyahu's corrupt ties after "many days of psychological pressure" from Likud functionaries.
DID THE PRIME MINISTER KNOW EVERYTHING?
At first glance, the emergence of the “Qatar dossier” in the case of leaks from the Prime Minister’s Office does not bring any significant revelations. The arguments about the use of confidential documents in advising Qatar are very shaky and have no evidentiary basis.
In search of confirmation, the prosecution partially even relies on statements from “anonymous journalists” who previously worked with Feldstein.
Moreover, the consolidation of the two cases into one is a logical step, especially since the key figures in both cases are the same, and most of the charges can be reduced to one - abuse of office.
However, the long-term impact of the “Qatar dossier” on international politics should not be underestimated.
It gives Netanyahu's opponents a good and, more importantly, long-lasting trump card. The opposition has effectively gained the opportunity to say that the "strong Hamas", which Israeli troops have been unable to completely destroy in a year and a half of military action, was nurtured with the direct participation of the prime minister's close associates.
More broadly, there may have been “criminal negligence,” since Qatar’s consultants were aware of the risks of leaking information from Doha to Hamas officials and went ahead with the dangerous deal anyway. And what’s more, Netanyahu himself was aware of the risks and was likely aware of the actions of his spokesman and his partners.
This formulation of the question already allows us to “throw a bridge” to the convening of a special commission to investigate the reasons for the unpreparedness of Israeli structures for a Hamas attack, the establishment of which Netanyahu has successfully torpedoed time and again.
And the "Qatari dossier" in this case may become an argument against the prime minister. Especially considering that the long-awaited exchange of hostages did not bring relief to Israeli society.
On the contrary, the Israelis saw hundreds of new fighters on the ruins of Gaza, ready to continue the confrontation if necessary. And the very idea that the first person of the state could be involved in strengthening Hamas, even if only very indirectly, is capable of provoking a new round of political crisis in Israel.
Especially when Netanyahu is studiously keeping quiet.
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Posted by badanov 2025-02-12 00:00||
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