Global vilification campaign against Qatar over Gaza war mediation, say researchers

Experts described it as ‘the largest to ever target’ Qatar which was meant to paint
Doha in a negative light in the West

Published: 10 July 2024

NT Bureau
Doha

Qatar has been subjected to the largest vilification campaign ever over its role in Gaza mediation, disinformation researchers say, according to reports.

The murky operation began late last year and spans multiple countries, as Israel’s nine-month war bin Gaza rages.

The campaigns, which look well-resourced, appear designed to create sentiment against Qatar across the US, Britain and European Union.

The apparent goal is to make any “institutional relationship with Qatar radioactive,” said Sohan Dsouza, a London-based researcher formerly with the MIT Media Lab.

It could be taking advantage of the Israel-Gaza war to “advance a latent anti-Qatar agenda.”
Shady websites calling for a boycott of Qatar, a New York billboard targeting the Gulf state’s rulers, and a Vietnamese outfit floating hundreds of slander-ridden Facebook ads – these were some elements of an operation ‘vilifying’ Qatar as it mediates between Israel and Hamas amid the war in Gaza.

The campaigns, many using Islamophobic and anti-immigrant tropes, involve an anti-Qatar ad that featured at a US gathering of political conservatives attended by Donald Trump and an online change.org petition attributed to a fictitious person and organization, The New Arab reported.

The online and offline campaigns illustrate the ease with which a person or an entire country can be tarnished in the age of disinformation while masking the ultimate perpetrators.

Joining the dots between the various campaigns led researchers and AFP down a rabbit hole to a series of characters – from a Vietnamese hacker-for-hire to an influential educator and a Christian faith leader in the United States, all seemingly obscuring the trail to the brain behind them.

Among the new websites attacking Doha in recent months is “Shame on Qatar” – in English, French and Spanish – which accuses it of funding terrorists and calls for a boycott of Qatari-owned icons such as Harrods, the Paris Saint-Germain football club and the New York Plaza hotel.