by Seth Mandel
Friday, November 07, 2025
Americans saw firsthand over the past two years that
whatever Israel’s conspiratorial detractors accuse the Jewish state of doing,
Qatar is almost surely doing exactly that on behalf of the world’s
America-hating regimes.
One such example arose this week: the legend of the
super-secret spies scouring the earth for Israel-critics to ruin.
This belief in a global hasbara strike force is, like
other imagined schemes, a matter of projection. Case in point: the new report
that Qatar has bankrolled a private intelligence operation targeting the woman
who has accused International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan of sexual
assault.
Before we get to the details, let’s review
the case. In 2023, according to the victim, Khan assaulted her on several
trips abroad as well as in Khan’s wife’s home in The Hague, where the ICC is
based. She was new to Khan’s team but not to the ICC, where she’d worked for
six years previously.
According to the Wall Street Journal, which broke
the story in May, Khan canceled a fact-finding trip intended to gather
evidence to help him determine whether or not to seek a warrant for the arrest
of Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for war
crimes. The ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel, so Khan was already gambling
with whatever was left of the institution’s credibility.
Khan reportedly canceled those trips once he was made
aware of the rape allegations. He soon after issued the warrants. As the Journal
explained: “The warrant shored up support for Khan among anti-Israel ICC
nations that would likely back Khan if the allegations ever became public,
according to court officials. The warrant also discouraged his accuser for a
time from pushing her allegations, officials said, because she strongly
supported the investigation of Israeli leaders.”
Khan reportedly tried to guilt his accuser into keeping
quiet about the allegations, telling her that going public would hurt Gazans
because it could derail his case against Netanyahu. His accuser took it to
heart, requesting a transfer instead of an investigation into Khan. “I held on
for as long as I could because I didn’t want to f*** up the Palestinian arrest
warrants,” she testified.
Although some extremist figures, such as incoming New
York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, still back the arrest warrant, the case against
Netanyahu at the court is obviously and entirely illegitimate. Even worse, it
was issued apparently in an attempt to let the prosecutor get away with rape.
Khan took a leave of absence from the case, but the ICC requires thorough
reform or disbanding.
As if all that wasn’t bad enough, now we’ve got the
reported Qatari involvement—a story broken by the ICC’s staunch ally against
Israel, the UK Guardian, which reports:
“The private intelligence operation that has targeted the
woman at the centre of the UN inquiry is said to have commenced earlier this
year, when Highgate was commissioned by Qataris.
“A small group of senior Highgate employees was made
aware the ultimate client for the project was the Qatari unit, according to
evidence reviewed by the Guardian. The funding was regarded as highly
sensitive. Executives involved in the project were careful to refer to its
client as the ‘client country’ or ‘Q country’.
“A document seen by the Guardian suggests that at one
stage during the operation Highgate sought information that would link the
alleged victim and her family members with Israel or its intelligence
agencies.”
According to the Journal, Khan had suggested his
accuser might be part of a plot to bring down the ICC. This was a way to
casually plant the idea that his victim was actually an Israeli agent. The Guardian
notes that he actually then met with the intelligence team assigned to tar his
accuser. The intelligence firm followed this line of investigation, but to no
avail: As is usually the case, Israel haters were lying.
The intelligence firm apparently went so far as to hack into her private communications, but still found nothing. No amount of Qatari money can change the fact that Khan, his ICC enablers, the countries and politicians supporting his actions—and of course Qatar itself—are the bad guys here. The public should keep in mind for the future that extraordinary accusations against Israel are often themselves admissions of guilt.
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