This week, Lod activist Abed Abu Shehadeh was released after Qatar arrested him for an interview he conducted with Azmi Bishara. Abu Shehadeh was detained against a backdrop of suspicions about foreign influence on Israel’s election system. Though he’s been released and has already celebrated his freedom, his employer—the Arab48 website—is a textbook example of foreign, Qatari influence designed to promote nationalism and ‘Palestinianization’ among Israeli Arabs.
1+The news site where Abu Shehadeh posted his interview with Bishara, just before the elections, belongs to a Qatari company called Fadaat Media. It’s a private firm where Bishara serves as chairman of the board, and the company has extensive partnerships with the Qatari regime. Beyond that, the Qatari company operates a TV channel in Syria, in Lebanon, and several other popular media outlets, including the Al-Araby Al-Jadeed website and newspaper operating out of Britain, plus a film production company.
Arab48 distributes content in the spirit of the Balad party—nationalism, anti-Israel sentiment, and sympathy for ‘Palestinian’ terrorists. The films produced by the Qatari company also focus heavily on Arab society in Israel, aiming to create a halo around ‘Palestinian’ national symbols like terrorists with blue ID cards. One film produced by Fadaat Media’s production company glorifies the terrorist Walid Daqqa, who murdered IDF soldier Moshe Tamam, and, of course, among those interviewed, you can find Azmi Bishara and the terrorist Zakaria Zubeidi.
1+The Qatari company was involved in producing the film ‘Palestine 36 ‘, which depicts the Arab Revolt from the ‘Palestinian’ point of view. Quite a few Israeli Arabs work on the Qatari company’s productions. Among other things, it also produces the show by singer Dalal Abu Amneh about ‘Palestinian’ roots tours in Haifa, Nazareth, and Schehem.
In other words, a Qatari media company—whose driving force is the spy Azmi Bishara—stands behind media outlets targeting Arab society in Israel. A few days before the elections, Bishara and interviewer Abu Shehadeh urged the Arab public to go vote in droves. Qatari money, through the mediation and spirit of the foreign agent Azmi Bishara, is working to incite and influence Israeli Arabs—quite successfully.