22 Facts About Joey Allaham

Joey Allaham is a lobbyist and former New York City restaurant entrepreneur.

Joey Allaham founded a number of restaurants in New York including Prime Grill, Prime KO, and others.

From 2017 to 2018, Allaham was a lobbyist for the government of Qatar.

Joey Allaham was born in Damascus and grew up in a Syrian Jewish family of butchers.

Joey Allaham became known for his luxury kosher restaurants, especially Prime Grill, which was seen as New York's first high-end kosher steakhouse.

Joey Allaham founded Prime Hospitality Group, a company that offered kosher catering to resorts.

Joey Allaham has managed to collaborate with a number of government and international officials, as well as other prominent business people through his restaurant businesses.

Joey Allaham started helping Qatar make political investments and affiliations with the American Jewish community.

Joey Allaham emerged as a prominent behind-the-scenes figure in stateside battles associated with the Gulf crisis and other incidents.

Joey Allaham managed to arrange meetings in the US between Qatari officials and some of Donald Trump's associates.

Joey Allaham offered them trips to Doha, where they could meet with Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and other government officials.

Joey Allaham listed his clients as the "State of Qatar" and the "Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy," specifying his respective official points of contact for each as Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and the younger brother of the emir, Mohammed bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani.

Joey Allaham filed his foreign lobbying activities on behalf of the Qatari government with the Justice Department in June 2018, where donations to pro-Israel organizations the Zionist Organization of America and Our Soldiers Speak were listed.

In June 2018 Joey Allaham disclosed the payments in a filing to register as an agent of a foreign government.

Joey Allaham was instrumental in an "unconventional" lobbying campaign for Qatar during the Trump administration.

However, Joey Allaham settled a lawsuit filed by Republican fundraiser Elliott Broidy, and admitted to knowing about the Qatari hack of Broidy's emails before the news of it broke out.

Joey Allaham revealed that he was excluded from further negotiations and not informed about the subsequent $50 million investment deal involving Qatar's ruling Al Thani family.

In 2021, Joey Allaham began working on Israel-Indonesia diplomatic ties, and established Israeli collaboration with Indonesian Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto.

In 2023, Joey Allaham worked toward establishing bilateral trade between Israel and Indonesia, with a formal normalization agreement expected to be announced in October.

Joey Allaham set up negotiations between Andi Widjajanto, a senior advisor to the then Indonesian President Joko Widodo, and Ronen Levy, the director-general of the Israeli foreign ministry and a "key player" in the Abraham Accords.

The announcement was put on hold when the Gaza war began on October 7,2023, following which Joey Allaham repurposed the backchannel of communication between Widjajanto and Levy to evacuate Indonesian aid workers trapped in Gaza.

Joey Allaham coordinated with Judha Nugraha, who was director for the Protection of Citizens at the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, to facilitate the passage of Indonesians from Gaza into Egypt.