Qatar's Double Game: Funding Islamists While Pretending to Be America's Ally
by Khaled Abu Toameh • November 21, 2022 at 5:00 am
Hamas leaders [who have relocated to Doha]... are using Qatar as a base for calling for the destruction of Israel. Yet this does not seem to bother the rulers of Qatar or its allies in the West, including the US.
This is the same Qatar whose leaders claim that they condemn all acts of terrorism and violent extremism.
It is disquieting, to say the least, that a county that hosts the leadership of a Palestinian group that carried out thousands of terror attacks against Israel is talking about Qatar's desire to help eliminate terrorism and extremism.
It is also disquieting that Qatar... continues to pour millions of dollars into the Gaza Strip, thereby emboldening Hamas, whose leaders and charter champion violence and call for the destruction of Israel.
Haniyeh is not the only Hamas leader living under the patronage of Qatar. Several other Hamas leaders, including Khaled Mashaal, Hussam Badran, Izzat al-Risheq and Sami Khater, have also been welcomed to move their offices and homes to the Gulf state.
In addition to hosting the Hamas leaders and their families, Qatar has been providing millions of dollars to Palestinians in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.... [T]he Qatari aid indirectly helps Hamas to hold on to power. Qatar's beneficence exempts Hamas from its responsibilities towards the Palestinians living under its rule in the Gaza Strip and allows the terror group instead to direct its resources and energies towards building tunnels to attack Israel and manufacturing weapons, including rockets, in preparation for their next war to try to destroy Israel.
The Hamas leaders have often been criticized by Palestinians and other Arabs for leading comfortable lives in Qatar while calling on their people in the Gaza Strip to continue the jihad (holy war) against Israel.
Qatar, however, evidently cares nothing about the interests of ordinary Palestinians, such as boosting their economy and improving their living conditions. What it cares about is embracing the leaders of Hamas to make Qatar appear to the Arabs and Muslims as the main supporter of the Palestinian "resistance" – a euphemism for the "armed struggle" against Israel.
In spite of Qaradawi's public support for terrorism and inflammatory rhetoric, the Qataris continued to host him and many of his followers, as well as the leaders of Hamas -- in this way turning the emirate into a center for spreading global jihad and terrorism.
It is this detrimental role that, in 2017, prompted four Arab countries -- Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt -- to break diplomatic relations with Qatar. The four countries also barred Qatari citizens and closed all their borders to Qatar.
The Saudis accused Qatar of "embracing various terrorist and sectarian groups aimed at destabilizing the region, including the Muslim Brotherhood group, Daesh (ISIS) and Al-Qaeda..." — Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington, DC, June 5, 2017.
Qatar has long hosted the largest US airbase in the Middle East, but Qatar is not hosting the base out of love for the Americans. Rather, it is a way of distracting attention from its support for the Muslim Brotherhood and other extremist groups.
Qatar might even have convinced some Americans that it is doing the US a favor by allowing the airbase to be there. How comfortable it must be to export terrorism while having the protection of the US military right on your own soil.
Qatar, however, is no friend of the US or its Arab allies. In fact, Qatar's endorsement of global jihad remains a source of intense concern for many Arabs, who are asking when the US will wake up and see how the Qataris have been using their wealth to subvert America by showering it with gifts, including financial contributions to US universities and think-tanks.
As long as Qatar continues to fund and host the Hamas leadership, and as long as it continues to use Al-Jazeera to encourage jihad and extremism, the only real game that the emirate is playing, apart from the World Cup, is one of successfully deceiving the Americans.
A recent meeting in Doha, Qatar, between the Palestinian group, Hamas, and Afghanistan's Taliban, has served as yet another reminder of Qatar's double game of harboring and sponsoring Islamic extremists while simultaneously pretending to be an ally of the US and other Western countries.
This meeting, which took place on October 26, was attended by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh who, together with several officials from that Islamist group, relocated from the Gaza Strip to Qatar over the past few years.
Last year, Haniyeh, now based in Doha, was quick to telephone Taliban leaders to "congratulate" them on the "defeat of the American occupation of Afghanistan." Haniyeh said that Hamas sees the US withdrawal from Afghanistan as a prelude for the elimination of "all forces on injustice," especially Israel.
