Statements reportedly made by Qatar’s Foreign Minister regarding the formation of an “Arab NATO” have gone viral across social media.
“Borders between Arab countries must be abolished as a first step in forming an Arab NATO that will put an end to Western arrogance,” the reported statement reads.
Al-Masry Al-Youm’s fact-checking team confirmed that the statement is completely fabricated, and that the Qatari Foreign Minister never issued it.
The team identified seven accounts sharing the circulated statement, with a total of 861,000 views, nearly 16,000 likes, and 2,305 shares.
By reviewing the official social media accounts of the news platform which reportedly first published the false statement, the team found that that the account was fake and fabricated the statement using its own stock press release design.
After reviewing the platform’s official designs, the team found discrepancies between the design for its official press release and the one use fabricated statement. These include the font used in the circulated statement, which did not match the font used by the official news platform.
The team also searched official news agencies and reliable media outlets and found no other mention of the Qatari Foreign Minister’s statement.
The false statement was circulated during Qatar’s condemnation on March 24, in a statement issued via its official Foreign Ministry’s Twitter account, of Israel’s announcement that it would establish an agency aimed at displacing Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and its approval to further divide 13 illegal settlement neighborhoods in the West Bank.
Edited translation form Al-Masry Al-Youm
