The Doha-London-Haifa Line: The flow of funds from Qatar to an Israeli NGO does not stop

Three years after the October 7 massacre, and while the security investigation into the "Qatargate" affair regarding the alleged connection between Prime Minister Netanyahu's close advisors and Qatar is still ongoing, "Shomrim" reveals that Qatar continues to transfer funds to Israeli NGOs. Moreover: since 2023, the volume of funds flowing from Qatar to Israel has surged sharply. An examination reveals that an Israeli NGO based in Haifa, named the "Association for Arab Culture," received donations from abroad in the years 2020-2025 totaling 17.8 million shekels, which is more than 95% of its income. The vast majority of them came from a charity fund called "The Galilee Foundation" which is registered in London, but the bulk of its income comes from Qatar. Behind the path of the funds from Doha to London and from there to Haifa stand brothers Azmi and Marwan Bishara. The first, Dr. Azmi Bishara, a former Knesset member, has lived in Qatar since he fled Israel during a covert investigation conducted against him on suspicion of aiding Hezbollah during the Second Lebanon War. Bishara is also one of the founders of the "Al-Araby Al-Jadeed" channel in London, which serves as a platform for promoting the narratives of the Qatari government. The second brother, Dr. Marwan Bishara, lives in England and, among other things, serves as a regular commentator on the veteran Qatari broadcasting network Al Jazeera, which is blocked for broadcast in Israel. Azmi Bishara manages the "Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies" based in Doha. The center donates money to the British foundation, whose chairman of the board of trustees and one of its founders is his brother Marwan. From there, the funds are transferred to their final destination — Israeli NGOs, including the "Association for Arab Culture" mentioned earlier. An organization that the two's late sister, Dr. Rawdat Bishara, was among its founders and managers.

Sharp surge in the volume of donations from Qatar

By analyzing the Haifa organization's files at the Registrar of Amutot (NGOs), financial reports of the foundation in England, as well as publications of the Arab Center in Doha, "Shomrim" traced the path of the money that was registered in Israel as a donation from England. The findings point to a sharp surge in the volume of Qatari money being funneled along this route starting in 2023. In 2022, Marwan Bishara's British foundation received 181 thousand dollars from his brother Azmi's center in Doha (a sum representing a quarter of the foundation's total income that year). In 2023, the amount surged almost tenfold to 1.8 million dollars. In 2024, the amount grew even more and reached 2.1 million dollars, and in 2025, it stood at 1.6 million dollars. The institute managed by Bishara in Doha is defined as a private independent institution and it has economic ties to the Qatari government. For example, the MA study track established by the institute is mainly funded by the Qatari government. Or, for example, the foundation in London, which, in parallel with the funds the institute transfers to it directly, receives interest from an investment fund donated by the Emir of Qatar, and its profits are used mainly for the benefit of a scholarship program for students in Israel. This is according to the financial reports of the British foundation in the years 2023 and 2025. One can also discover the connection between the foundation in London and Doha in that the investment portfolio of the British foundation — worth 2.5 million dollars — includes, alongside shares of Western companies, also bonds of two Qatari entities controlled by the emirate. Thus, funds originating in Qatar reach Israel and are registered there as a donation from an English charity fund. The word Qatar does not appear, but the money does.

The "Association for Arab Culture," whose budget in 2025 stood at 3.3 million shekels (90% of which are donations from abroad), regularly submits its financial reports to the Registrar of Amutot at the Ministry of Justice and receives a "proper management certificate." The words "Qatar" or "Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies" do not appear in the organization's documents. The regulations for NGOs require reporting the identity of the donor but not the sources of their money. So that in this case, in the absence of a legal need to disclose the sources of the British foundation, it seems that reporting it as a donor, and not the institute in Qatar, meets the technical requirements of the Registrar of Amutot. The organization did not report to the Registrar of Amutot that a board member and authorized signatory on its behalf, Dr. Mahmoud Muhareb, also serves as a research fellow at Bishara's institute in Doha — as mentioned, the funder of the foundation in London, the donor to the organization in Haifa. "This is the use of money laundering methods, not in its illegal sense, but in the sense of an attempt to hide the source of the money. There is concealment here, not absolute, but it is concealment," Brig. Gen. (res.) Sima Vaknin-Gil, former Director General of the Ministry for Strategic Affairs, told "Shomrim" about a year and a half ago.

Book fairs, performances, and Nakba tours

The goals of the "Association for Arab Culture" in Haifa, as they appear in the documents submitted to the Registrar of Amutot, are: "Establishment and operation of cultural clubs, support for scientific research, and encouragement of cultural creation in Israel." On the web, one can find extensive activity on issues of Arab identity — book fairs, performances and festivals, "Nakba tours" in villages and Arab localities that were uprooted in '48, and the highlight: the distribution of scholarships in the name of the late sister Bishara. The scholarships are distributed to hundreds of Arab-Israeli students studying at universities and colleges in the country. The scholarship amount is 3,000 shekels, and the students who receive it are required to participate in enrichment workshops and lectures on topics of Palestinian identity and history and in volunteer activities. The scholarship program in Israel is described in the report of the "Galilee Foundation" in London from last year as the "foundation's flagship program." In addition, it was written in the report that the foundation supports a scholarship program at the Palestinian Al-Quds University, the establishment of a cultural center building in Haifa (of the "Association for Arab Culture"), the "Adalah" human rights organization center, and specifically its report, which analyzed how universities in Israel "systematically suppressed the freedom of expression of Palestinian students after October 7."

As Netanyahu said? "Qatar is a complex country"

For the purpose of examining and evaluating the information collected from open sources, "Shomrim" was assisted by experts from the ISGAP institute, which has been engaged in the last decade in exposing Qatari funding and the infrastructure of the Muslim Brotherhood movement in the West. Brig. Gen. (res.) Vaknin-Gil says that even if there is no apparent legal problem with the way the funds are transferred, the approach towards funds originating in Qatar should be changed. Vaknin-Gil describes the Qatari involvement in the fields of education, welfare, and academia around the world and in Israel with the term "Soft Power," whose goal is to embed the ideology and agenda of Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood. She complains that "Qatar is not currently defined as an enemy state, according to any of the four existing laws in Israel that allow such a definition," this, according to her, "while it is clear to everyone that it is not a friendly country." According to Vaknin-Gil, "If the Israeli government changes the definition of Qatar — whether it is to the strict definition of an 'enemy state' or alternatively to a country that has various restrictions on maintaining diplomatic or business relations with it — it will be easier to expose the money path and stop it." No responses were received from the "Galilee" foundation and the "Association for Arab Culture" NGO.