White House Correspondents’ season just wrapped in Washington. Last weekend, celebrities, journalists, and politicians descended on Washington to celebrate the free press. Traditionally, the weekend is also an occasion to take jabs at the administration. Among this year’s events was a soiree hosted by the Embassy of Qatar.

Wining and dining the press has become somewhat of an annual ritual for Qatar. Doha hosted parties at the Four Seasons in 2023 and 2024 and co-sponsored another swanky event in 2019.

How Qatar became a regular headliner during a weekend celebrating First Amendment freedoms is baffling. Qatar is an autocratic petrostate that prohibits criticism of the emir” and limits freedom of expression, including for members of the press.” Qatar is no champion of the values espoused by the White House Correspondents Association. Yet Doha is charming pundits and politicians into believing otherwise. This is a textbook example of Qatar buying prestige in the West. It’s not just happening in America. And it’s not inconsequential. Right now, a similar story is making waves in Israel that should serve as a cautionary tale for American policymakers.

In February, Israel’s Shin Bet security agency opened an investigation into alleged ties between Qatar and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office. An Israeli court placed a gag order on the case, but then overturned the order  — one day after Israeli authorities arrested two of Netanyahu’s aides.

We’ve since learned that the aides — Yonatan Urich and Eli Feldstein — allegedly worked to polish Qatar’s image in the Israeli press. Court documents allege that an American lobbying firm on Qatar’s payroll directed the operation, which involved promoting Qatar’s role in Gaza ceasefire talks at Egypt’s expense. The lobbying firm is headed by former aide to President Bill Clinton, Jay Footlik.

An Israeli police investigator told the court that Urich relayed messages to the media” that he received from an entity that maintains ties to and is funded by the state of Qatar.” Except Urich presented” the messages as if they came from a political or security source,” the investigator said.

Things got messier when authorities summoned the editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post, Zvika Klein, for questioning and placed him under house arrest. Klein travelled to Qatar last year to interview Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani. Klein said Footlik was his babysitter” during the trip and that Feldstein helped arrange interviews for him on Israel’s Channel 12 and Channel 13 when he returned.

Israeli authorities released Klein from house arrest on April 3. But Israel’s Qatargate” affair is far from over. Urich and Feldstein’s remain under house arrest. Another former advisor to Netanyahu is abroad in Serbia and wanted for questioning. And a majority of Israelis now believe that Netanyahu knew about his aides’ connections to Qatar. Israelis are losing faith in the integrity of their government.

Unfortunately, this tale isn’t uniquely Israeli. Qatargate hit Europe and made a pitstop in Washington before heading to the Middle East.

In 2022, European authorities uncovered a Qatari cash-for-influence scheme at the European Parliament involving over 1.5 million euros and a half-dozen suspects, including European Parliament Vice President Eva Kaili and her partner, parliamentary aide Francesco Giorgi. Authorities reportedly even caught Kaili’s father leaving a hotel with a suitcase full of cash. 

Kaili and her colleagues allegedly accepted the money as bribes to sway the European Parliament in Qatar’s favor. Police found a cache of documents on Giorgi’s laptop describing hundreds of influence activities conducted on Doha’s behalf, such as neutralizing” resolutions condemning Qatar’s human rights record and ensuring that all copies of a book critical of Qatar that could be found inside Parliament were destroyed.”

Qatar is operating by the same playbook in the United States. Last summer, former Senator Robert Menendez resigned after a jury found him guilty of accepting bribes from a real estate developer who expected Menendez to induce” a Qatari investment firm to finance a multimillion-dollar project, including by taking action favorable to the Government of Qatar.” The Qataris allegedly offered Menendez Formula One Grand Prix racing tickets after the deal was closed.

Menendez received an 11-year prison sentence in January. But as one Qatari corruption scandal closes, another one opens. Local news recently reported that the mayor of Washington, D.C. and four staff members travelled to the Gulf on Qatar’s dime. The mayor’s office failed to disclose the source of the funds, if not outright lied about it.

The Qatari influence machine is in high gear. The question is, how deep is Qatar’s reach in the United States? American policymakers need to start asking questions or risk the fallout that’s shaking Israel.

Natalie Ecanow is a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C. Follow Natalie on X @NatalieEcanow and FDD @FDD.