Netanyahu aides painted Qatar as peacemaker in 2022 World Cup PR blitz — report
Haaretz says Jonatan Urich, Yisrael Einhorn recommended Doha highlight its role as Israel-Gaza mediator, condemn terrorism in bid to draw wary Jewish and German soccer fans
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s senior aides built a public relations campaign for Qatar aimed at portraying the Gulf state as a paragon of peace and stability in order to draw Jewish tourists there for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, Hebrew media reported on Thursday.
The report came amid accusations that Netanyahu had, in part, enabled the Hamas onslaught that sparked the war in Gaza by allowing Qatar to funnel an estimated $2 billion in cash to the Palestinian terror group.
According to Haaretz, Jonatan Urich and Yisrael Einhorn had edited and been seen with documents from their PR firm Perception outlining plans to boost Qatar’s image. The duo reportedly spent months on the documents, which were said to suggest that Doha highlight its role as a mediator in conflicts between Israel and Gaza and condemn global terrorism, among other recommendations.
Haaretz cited a presentation from the PR push as saying that in April 2022, purportedly the first month of the campaign, positive online discourse about Qatar increased by 1.7 percent and negative discourse decreased by 1.3%. However, the newspaper said, it was unclear whether Urich and Einhorn’s recommendations were ever put into action.
Perception called the report “fake news.” Urich — who in 2022 was the spokesman for then-opposition leader Netanyahu’s Likud party — similarly denied Haaretz’s initial report last week that he and Einhorn had worked for Qatar.
In November and December of 2022, Qatar hosted the quadrennial FIFA World Cup, which was open to Israeli tourists despite Jerusalem and Doha having no official relations.
Perception was reportedly enlisted at the time to help Qatar appeal to Jewish, environmentalist, and German soccer fans who might be deterred by the oil-rich country’s abysmal record on terrorism, clean energy, LGBTQ rights and workers’ safety.
According to Haaretz, Urich wrote in an August 2022 Perception memo that “the war between Israel and Gaza is leading to negative discourse in the Jewish community” — apparently referring to that month’s three-day Operation Breaking Dawn.
“We recommend emphasizing Qatar’s involvement as a mediator for a ceasefire and the return of peace,” Urich was said to write, a day after the document was created.
In a memo from June of the previous year, Einhorn had also reportedly recommended that Qatar host an exhibition game between Israeli and Palestinian youth soccer teams.
In other documents, Urich was said to suggest that Qatar condemn terror attacks in Israel and around the world, and establish a compensation fund for injured construction workers.
Meanwhile, Perception reportedly also built a campaign around the message “Katar für den Friden” (Qatar for peace) for German audiences — especially soccer fans, politicians, journalists, and online influencers. The campaign was said to comprise short German-language videos showcasing Qatar’s contributions toward world peace.
In particular, the campaign was said to emphasize Qatar’s role as “the backbone of Germany” amid the energy crisis brought on by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Last week, Haaretz reported about memos bearing the Perception logo that indicated Qatar had enlisted Urich and Einhorn’s services. A video promoting Qatar on Einhorn’s YouTube channel was taken down after Haaretz asked Perception for comment on its story.
Qatar, until recently a mediator in talks to end the war in Gaza, has been accused by Israel of failing to apply pressure on Hamas to reach a hostage-ceasefire agreement. Much of the terror group’s leadership was based in Doha, but is said to have been banished to Turkey in recent weeks.
Reports of Urich and Einhorn’s involvement with Qatar come as aides of Netanyahu are suspected of committing security violations in a bid to better the premier’s image amid his failure to prevent thousands of Hamas-led terrorists from storming southern Israel on October 7, 2023, to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gaza.
In one case, Urich is reportedly suspected of having instructed former Netanyahu spokesman Eli Feldstein to leak stolen military intelligence to German tabloid Bild in a distorted manner that would support the premier’s talking points against a hostage deal with Hamas.
Urich has been questioned under caution but has not been arrested or charged in the case. Einhorn, who is currently abroad, is reportedly delaying his return to Israel so as not to be arrested. Netanyahu is not a suspect.
It is believed that 97 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 37 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.
