by Con Coughlin, GATESTONE • April 3, 2024
US President Joe Biden meets with Qatar’s Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, in the White House on January 31, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images)
- In one of the more high profile cases involving Qatar’s financing of terrorism, the family of murdered American journalist Steven Sotloff claimed in a federal lawsuit in 2022 that prominent Qatari institutions wired $800,000 to an Islamic State “judge” who ordered the murder of Sotloff and another American journalist, James Foley. The two were beheaded in Syria in 2014, their killings filmed and published in grisly propaganda videos.
- The US moved its forces to Qatar’s Al Udeid Air Base from Saudi Arabia in 2003, after the 9/11 attacks on the US in 2001. There seems no reason why it could not be moved once again to a country in the region that does not support terror groups.
- Of even greater concern [than Qatar contributing $5.1 billion to US campuses since 1986], though, is the Biden administration’s willingness to allow Qatar to play a prominent role in negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza and manage humanitarian aid delivered to a new pier being built in Gaza, even though Doha’s negotiating status and that of a potential caretaker have been thoroughly compromised through its involvement in creating Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure.
- Given Qatar’s well-documented support for Hamas, it is clear that no meaningful resolution of the Gaza conflict is possible so long as Doha is continuing with its efforts to negotiate a settlement that is favourable to Hamas, one that would enable the terrorist movement to remain in control of Gaza, or that Qatar should operate, or indeed have anything to do with, the delivery of “humanitarian aid” to what seems planned as Hamas’s new beachhead.
- Rather than allowing Qatar to continue playing its double game, where Doha pretends to be a close ally of the West while at the same time sponsoring terrorist groups such as Hamas and the Taliban, the Biden administration needs to wake up to the real threat Qatar poses to the security of the Middle East, and concentrate its efforts on negotiating a ceasefire deal and finding a custodian for Gaza and its new pier that do not require Qatar’s malign involvement.
Given Qatar’s well-documented support for Hamas, it is clear that no meaningful resolution of the Gaza conflict is possible so long as Doha is continuing with its efforts to negotiate a settlement that is favourable to Hamas, one that would enable the terrorist movement to remain in control of Gaza.
After the success the Gulf state of Qatar achieved in helping restore the Taliban to power in Afghanistan, Doha is now investing all its energy in seeking to keep Hamas in power in Gaza.
For more than a decade, the tiny Gulf emirate has been using the massive profits it derives from its vast energy resources to sponsor radical Islamist ideology that underpins terrorist organisations such as Hamas.
Qatar was an enthusiastic supporter of the disastrous Muslim Brotherhood regime that briefly ruled Egypt, a period that is mainly memorable for the murderous attacks carried out against Christian in communities and Cairo’s diplomatic overtures to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
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