A political analyst for the Haaretz newspaper was found to have received payments worth hundreds of thousands of dollars that could be traced back to the Qatari government, the newspaper reported on Saturday, marking the second time in recent months that one of its writers was associated with the Qatargate scandal.

Alon Pinkas, the former Israeli consul in New York City, received payments from Gil Birger, a businessman questioned by police as a possible suspect over alleged transfers of money between Qatar and figures close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The scandal revolves around allegations that aides to Netanyahu took money to spread pro-Qatar messaging to reporters as Qatar was acting as a mediator in talks between Israel and Hamas for the release of hostages the Palestinian terror group abducted from Israel when it led a massive invasion on October 7, 2023.

Birger, who is suspected of having sent money to Netanyahu’s aides from US-based pro-Qatar lobbyist Jay Footlik, made similar transactions via Footlik to Pinkas, according to Haaretz.

Pinkas reportedly received these payments from January 2024 to March 2025, but ended his dealings with Footlik once the latter’s payments to former Netanyahu spokesman Eli Feldstein were publicized in the media.

Channel 12 reported in March that Footlik had approached several prominent media advisers who had worked with hostage families in hopes of collaborating with them. Pinkas confirmed that he approached Ronen Tzur, who was head of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, on behalf of Footlik.

After the report came out, Haaretz editor-in-chief Aluf Benn asked Pinkas about the matter, who said that he and Footlik were friends and that he assisted him in working with the Families Forum.

Pinkas stopped working at the paper after that conversation. While Haaretz made no public announcement of Pinkas’s dismissal, a disclosure notice was added to the columns he wrote during the period he worked with Footlik.

Another person involved in Qatargate, David Saig, who had also........

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