Qatar Courts American Jews While Surreptitiously Infiltrating Pro-Israel Advocacy Groups

In November and December, a number of prominent American Jewish figures traveled to Qatar—including Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice-president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the head of the Zionist Organization of America Morton Klein, and the lawyer Alan Dershowitz. The visits seemed part of a charm offensive by Doha to win sympathy in the American Jewish community. On February 2, however, Al Jazeera—which is owned and operated by the emirate—sent letters to several pro-Israel groups in the U.S. letting them know that one of the network’s agents had infiltrated their organizations under false pretenses and secretly recorded conversations that will form the basis of a soon-to-be-released documentary. Armin Rosen tries to make sense of the coincidence of these two efforts: