DOHA (The Thursday Times) — A years-long, paid influence operation that pushed racist, Islamophobic and anti-Qatar messaging to millions of social media users across 30 countries was most likely run from inside Israel, according to an investigation published on Thursday.
The report, titled Manufacturing the “Great Replacement”, by Marc Owen Jones, a professor at Northwestern University’s Doha campus, and independent researcher Sohan Dsouza, found at least 533 million exposures to adverts on YouTube, TikTok and Facebook between October 2023 and October 2026. The campaign likely cost more than $11 million, the researchers estimated, calling it “perhaps one of the biggest digital influence and disinformation operations ever documented”.
The adverts cast Qatar as the hidden force behind mass Muslim migration meant to “Islamise” Europe. “Qatar takes the role that anti-Semitic versions give to George Soros,” Jones said, describing how the campaign borrowed the structure of the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory.
The researchers said they had “moderate to high confidence” that the operation was launched from within Israel, citing metadata showing video editors worked in the Israeli time zone on machines with Hebrew drive and folder names. One strand on TikTok promoted regime change in Iran to European audiences, with adverts starting on February 24, four days before the US and Israel went to war with Iran.
The adverts appeared to track election calendars. Spending in France ran through the months before the June 2024 European Parliament elections, while buying in Britain stopped on May 17, 2024, days before the general election was called. France accounted for about a third of placements, while the UK recorded the most exposures, at 154 million, followed by the United States with 100 million. The report warned the campaign remains active ahead of elections in France and Italy in 2027.
