By Roger L Simon
A startling report today (Jan 11) tells us Alon Pinkas, a retired journalist for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, a man whose work I was familiar with, was allegedly on the take from Qatar for a rather impressive sum, given his profession.
Eric Fischberger wrote on X:
“Breaking: Longtime Haaretz columnist Alon Pinkas was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars (from January 2024 through March 2025) by a lobbyist tied to Qatar.
”These payments were made while Pinkas was simultaneously publishing pro-Qatari columns in the paper. Pinkas’s pay was routed through an Israeli businessman and traced to Washington lobbyist Jay Footlik, who has represented Qatari interests.
”The revelation comes after the earlier firing of another senior Haaretz journalist, Chaim Levinson, who received at least NIS 200,000 (~$61,000) from a firm tied to the same Qatar influence network.”
Whoa… A bad day for Pinkas, and for the left-wing, New York Times clone Haaretz. But the kicker comes at the end of Fischberger’s post:
”Some of you may also recall that former Qatari Prime Minister Hamad Bin Jassim is on record stating that ‘We have journalists on our payroll in many countries.”
I bet it’s not just journalists but also pundits, podcasters, and media personalities of all descriptions, politicians, and, almost certainly, college professors, since Qatar has more or less bought the Ivy League, not to mention an astonishing number of other higher education institutions across our country.
Beyond all this, they established Al Jazeera some time ago, now arguably the most powerful Arab media company, with a global audience of 450 million.
Most importantly, they are the primary financial backer of the Muslim Brotherhood now that Saudi Arabia and the UAE have diminished their support for that organization with its unremitting imperialistic Islamist ideology.
How can Qatar do all this? They are a country of only slightly more than three hundred thousand citizens, less than the population of Omaha, plus roughly seven hundred thousand foreign workers to clean their palatial homes and build them bigger ones. (Until recently, Qatar received considerable criticism for how it exploited these people.)
But criticism isn’t all that significant when you are sitting on the world’s biggest supply of natural gas (LNG) with a royal family, the Al Thanis, worth, in some estimates, in excess of $330bn, with global investments in such tony operations as Valentino and Harrods.
With all that dough, you have to know you are a magnate for the second of the Seven Deadly Sins—Greed, and its partner, envy.
You can use this for all manner of purposes, political, cultural, economic, and religious.
In the process, you have on your side the widespread secularism of the West, from the USA and across Europe, actually just about anywhere, even among the most superficially religious.
In this, we have the example of Tucker Carlson, who allegedly adores and wants to buy a home in the country that is the greatest supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose intent has always been the destruction of all other religions but Islam. This would include the Christianity to which Carlson passionately swears his devotion. Could his faith all just be a masquerade for something more potent, as some have alleged with receipts?
Here is a rather obvious list of those who may be somewhere on the Qatari payroll.
More to the point, because not as obviously in the public eye, how many of our politicians and officials, big and small, have been bought by them in big and little ways? This can be accomplished through many means, as the Qataris have learned, with luxury trips, property, or cash. Other emoluments are possible for the scientifically inclined. Who even remembers which congressmen junketed to Doha a couple of months ago?
This has been going on for some time. I remember that during the Obama Administration, Nancy Pelosi flew to tiny Qatar multiple times. Was this just to visit our airbase there? Is insider trading the only explanation for her net worth growing from $3 million in 1987 to $280 million today?
We don’t know. In fact, there’s a lot we don’t know about those who govern and influence us. The Department of Justice should start looking into this if it hasn’t already. Israel is not the only country where important people are being co-opted, as Qatar’s former prime minister has already told us. This won’t be easy because there will be disturbing surprises in many quarters. I’d give this one to Judge Jeanine.
It’s also more than slightly likely that the recent rise in antisemitism domestically and in Europe has been enhanced, even manufactured, to a significant degree by Qatar behind the scenes.
Donald Trump, as is his wont, generally praises foreign leaders, even appears to embrace them when they are obvious adversaries like Xi and Putin. This seems to be a carry-over strategy from his business life, a variant of “keep your friends close but your enemies closer.” No doubt, at this point, his enemies are on to the game.
He has done the same thing with the latest Al Thani, the current emir. It’s hard to know what he really thinks of the Qatari leader, but from a recent interview in the NY Times, as quoted on Breitbart, he’s not keen on the new antisemites:
“President Trump denounced antisemites looking to enter into the Republican Party or the Make America Great Again movement during a recent interview.
“Speaking with the New York Times, the president said the Republican Party does not need antisemites in its ranks, noting his Jewish grandchildren.
“‘I think we don’t need them,’ he told the outlet. ‘I think we don’t like them.’”
Neither, apparently, does his Ambassador to Israel, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who said of Tucker Carlson on X today:
“Tucker saying the massacre, mutilation, & rape of women in front of their families [on Oct.7] is ‘political’ is like saying the ovens of Auschwitz were only used to keep Jews warm. What he says is not just wrong or ignorant. It’s demonic.”
As for the Israelis, they would do well to clean up their own act vis-à-vis Qatar. Too many of them have been bitten by the second of the Seven Deadly Sins as well.
MEANWHILE IN IRAN:
Mosques are burning all over the country. When the Israelis did that by accident in Gaza, the media exploded, even though everyone realized the mosques housed weapons and tunnels and were terror bases for Hamas. The Iranian people know better and don’t hesitate to torch these longtime staging areas for regime power. At heart, many Iranians are still Zoroastrians, their original religion. Neither the Muslim Brotherhood nor Qatar can be pleased.
Keep praying for a Free Iran.
First published in American Refugees
