The Wall Street Journal recently revealed that Qatar had promised International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan that it would “look after” him—implicitly in connection with the sexual assault case against him—if he pushed for an arrest warrant against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The report adds to a growing body of evidence regarding Qatar’s involvement in the case. South Africa’s December 2023 application against Israel under the Genocide Convention, heard by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), did not unfold in a diplomatic vacuum. Beyond the formal legal proceedings, Qatar appears to have played a role through diplomatic, economic, and media channels that helped shape the case and increase international pressure on Israel.
The Diplomatic Channel
The context in which South Africa announced its lawsuit is significant. In November 2023, during a visit to Doha and after meetings with senior Qatari officials, President Cyril Ramaphosa told Qatari media that Pretoria intended to bring a case against Israel. His remarks included harsh accusations against Israel, among them a comparison between Gaza and a concentration camp. Ramaphosa’s decision to make the announcement in the Qatari capital, before Qatari media, points to a degree of political coordination and to Qatar’s role in amplifying South Africa’s message internationally.
The Economic Channel
As the legal proceedings moved forward, Qatar and South Africa also deepened their economic ties. In March 2024, QatarEnergy was involved in gas exploration initiatives in South Africa, despite local protests in late 2023 against the activity of foreign energy companies, including QatarEnergy.
In addition, Qatar Airways expanded its position in South Africa’s aviation market, acquiring roughly 25 percent of Airlink, one of the country’s leading airlines, in August 2024. The acquisition points to a broader deepening of economic ties between the two countries during the same period in which South Africa was moving forward with the case.
Taken together, these developments suggest a convergence of interests in which economic cooperation between the countries has taken place in parallel to Pretoria pursuing an aggressive political and legal policy against Israel. This suggests a quid pro quo arrangement.
At the same time, various sources claimed that funds from Qatar, along with money from other entities such as Iran and Hamas, reached political actors in South Africa, particularly the ruling party. According to these claims, that support helped drive the hard line South Africa adopted in the international legal arena.
The International Legal Arena
Qatar also sought to advance the anti-Israel campaign through the international legal arena itself.
In February 2026, Fatou Bensouda, the former prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, appeared at the Al Jazeera Forum, where she framed the Palestinian issue as a test of international justice. That message aligned with the line promoted by Al Jazeera—a Qatari platform—and by other, similar forums.
Bensouda’s successor, Karim Khan, has also been linked to allegations of Qatari involvement, including in a criminal context. According to media reports, after Khan was accused of sexually assaulting a court employee, Qatar worked behind the scenes to assist him. A November 2025 report in the British newspaper The Guardian said private intelligence firms acting on Qatar’s behalf sought to undermine the credibility of the woman who had complained that Khan sexually assaulted her. Citing leaked documents and sources familiar with the Doha-initiated operation, the report said the firms obtained intrusive information about the complainant, a Muslim woman in her thirties, and about her family. Among other things, they reportedly tried to obtain information about her ties to Israel. In late April 2026, testimony obtained by the Wall Street Journal revealed that legal officials had allegedly been promised benefits in exchange for taking a hard line against Israel. Qatar allegedly promised to “look after” Karim Khan, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, if he advanced an arrest warrant against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Qatar denied the reports, condemned the media outlets that published them, and claimed they were part of a disinformation campaign against it. After the latest revelation, the Qatari outlet Middle East Eye reported on a lecture arranged for Khan at Oxford after he was cleared of the allegations against him. Some speculated that both the Oxford invitation—to an institution that had received Qatari funding as early as 2017—and the report on the lecture amounted to a rapid effort by Doha to rehabilitate Khan’s image.
These allegations fit a broader pattern of expanding ties between Qatar and international legal institutions, including through diplomatic engagement, cooperation frameworks, and the placement of professional personnel adjacent to those bodies. In June 2024, Qatar’s ambassador to the Netherlands presented the court with a wooden figure of a dhow, a symbol of the State of Qatar. Doha has also promoted cooperation with the international legal institution through working groups and internship programs.
The Public Channel
Al Jazeera played a central role in Qatar’s campaign to shape international public opinion. The network gave the Hague proceedings extensive live coverage and consistently framed them through a sharply critical narrative toward Israel, including repeated use of the term “genocide.” Qatari officials, including senior leaders, adopted similar language, often directing their attacks personally at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. After Israel’s September 2025 strike in Doha, Qatar’s official rhetoric against Netanyahu became even more severe.
In addition, Qatari outlets presented the Palestinian issue as a test of international justice, aligning that framing with Doha’s wider media and diplomatic campaign.
The same pattern of defamation of Israel through South Africa, with Qatari money, also appeared outside the courtroom. In January 2026, South Africa’s culture minister—who, unlike other members of his government, is regarded as friendly toward Israel—said in an official statement that a “foreign country” had tried to mount an influence operation at the Venice Biennale to strengthen the “genocide in Gaza” narrative. South African officials later clarified that the campaign was Qatari.
The Venice Biennale is widely regarded as the world’s most important and prestigious art event. The work selected for South Africa’s national pavilion centered on “mourning, memory, and repair,” linking the killing of women by colonial forces in Namibia, hate crimes against South Africa’s LGBTQ community, and “the killing of tens of thousands of women and children in Gaza since October 2023.” It also included a tribute to the Palestinian poet Hiba Abu Nada, who was killed in an Israeli strike during the war in Gaza.
According to the minister, Qatar was not listed as an official funder of the exhibition but had committed to purchasing the South African works after the Biennale closed. Such a mechanism allegedly created an incentive to produce art that served the Palestinian and anti-Israel narrative and showcased allegations of genocide in Gaza.
It is noteworthy in this context that the effort to distance Qatar’s role came after Doha had taken the unusual step of establishing its own pavilion at the prestigious exhibition, the first new national pavilion established at the Biennale in thirty years. That context helps explain why Qatar had an interest in preserving a respectable public image while allegedly using South Africa as a vehicle for attacking Israel through Qatari funding committed in advance.
Taken together, these developments point to a broad Qatari influence operation that unfolded parallel to South Africa’s case against Israel. Through diplomatic activity, deeper economic ties, and sustained media messaging, Qatar helped create an international environment more receptive to the legal campaign.
This enabled Qatar to shape the international arena indirectly but effectively, while largely remaining behind the scenes.
JISS Policy Papers are published through the generosity of the Greg Rosshandler Family.
