21-02-2025
The Qatar Weekly Update (QWU) – Part Of The Qatar Monitor Project (QMP) – No. 7, February 21, 2025
1. In 2017, Avenue Strategies, a Qatari lobbying group in the U.S., approached former Brig.-Gen. Shimon Shapira, former Military Secretary to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (and, until December 2016, Israeli Foreign Ministry chief of staff under Netanyahu's previous tenure as prime minister and foreign minister), at a time when U.S. legislation to sanction Qatar for sponsoring terrorism was in the works. According to a February 19, 2025 report in The Marker as well as documents submitted by the group in the U.S., Shapira wrote that "Qatar has not delivered weapons to Hamas." As a result of his letter, the legislation effort did not continue. The Prime Minister's Office has not commented on this report. This is another addition to the information surfacing in recent weeks regarding Netanyahu advisors' involvement in lobbying operations for Qatar.
2. A MEMRI report focused on a similar case in the U.S.: Qatar hired a former CIA official to spy on anti-Hamas and anti-Muslim Brotherhood lawmakers Sen. Ted Cruz, Sen. Tom Cotton, and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, as well as former Rep. Ed Royce – see MEMRI Daily Brief No. 565, Qatari Ambassador To U.S. Was Allegedly Involved In Bribing A French Minister, Spying On U.S. Lawmakers, January 22, 2024.
3. See MEMRI Daily Brief No. 720, Qatar Seeks To Sweep Away Trump's Gaza Plan With So-Called Peace Plan, by Yigal Carmon, February 19, 2025.
4. See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 11844, Another Qatari Regime Scandal In France: Qatari Official Investigated By French Authorities; Earlier, In 2016, Qatari Ambassador Had Allegedly Bribed A French Minister, February 18, 2025.
5. See MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis No. 1810, The National Conference For Palestine – A Qatari Initiative For Integrating The Hamas Terror Organization Into The PLO, by S. Schneidmann, L. Alon, and H. Varulkar, February 13, 2025.
6. On February 16, 2025, Rabbi Pini Dunner of the Beverly Hills Synagogue in California led Jewish activists in a protest outside the Bel Air home of former Qatari prime minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani (HBJ), a member of the Qatari royal family, over his close ties to Hamas. For a video of the protests, see Rabbi Dunner's X post.[1]
*Yigal Carmon is President and Founder of MEMRI.
