Once Again, Qatar Saves Hamas

by Stephen M. Flatow / JNS.org

The government of Qatar has again rescued Hamas.

Every time the Hamas terror regime in Gaza is on the brink of collapse, the Gulf state of Qatar comes riding in on a white horse like a knight in shining armor to ensure that Hamas will live to see another day. What happened to the “moderate” Qatar that American Jewish leaders were praising just a few years ago?

Photo by Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90.

This time, Hamas allegedly is running out of money to pay the salaries of its employees. If you don’t pay your employees, they don’t work. And if your workers don’t work, your gangster regime collapses. The collapse of Hamas would obviously be a good thing for Israel, the United States and modern civilization in general.

But once again, Qatar has jumped in on the side of the bad guys.

The new deal, according to media reports, will involve Qatar sending fuel to Gaza through Egypt. Hamas is then going to sell the fuel in order to meet its payroll.

That will keep Hamas in power so that it can continue firing thousands of missiles at Israeli kindergartens and kibbutzim near the Gaza border. And it can keep its cells in Judea and Samaria operating, so they can murder Jews there, too.

Qatar is already underwriting Gaza’s power plant and sending financial aid to 100,000 Gazans every month through a UN voucher system, which saves Hamas the expense of having to provide that aid. And it offered Hamas $500 million to rebuild after the 11-day conflict with Israeli in May—a conflict started by the terrorist organization and one that ended with the launching of more than 4,000 rockets at civilian populations in Israel. In short, Qatar is pretty much propping up the entire Hamas mini-terror state. 

Hamas is not the only terror gang supported by Qatar. Its close relationships with the Taliban and the Muslim Brotherhood have been well-documented. And a lawsuit now making its way through British courts charges that Qatar has sent hundreds of millions of dollars to the Al-Nusra Front, a Syrian-based affiliate of Al-Qaeda.

 And for those who are concerned about the rise of antisemitism around the world, it’s worth recalling that a report by the Anti-Defamation League found the official Qatari government media continues to publish editorial cartoons “which blatantly demonize Jews” and “draw on the worst kind of antisemitic themes.”

In addition, a review by MEMRI of textbooks prepared by Qatar’s Ministry of Education and used in its schools found that they “feature antisemitic motifs, presenting Jews as treacherous, dishonest and crafty, and at the same time as weak, wretched and cowardly.”

Moreover, the last international book fair in Qatar’s capital, Doha, featured antisemitic books such as “The Myth of the Nazi Gas Chambers” and “Lies Spread by the Jews,” and an Arabic translation of “Awakening to Jewish Influence in the United States of America” by white-supremacist leader (and former Ku Klux Klansman) David Duke.

This is all quite different from what we were told by the handful of leaders of American Zionist organizations who took all-expenses-paid trips to meet with the Emir of Qatar in his oil-rich Gulf kingdom in 2017-18. One Jewish official later admitted publicly that he was a paid, registered foreign agent of the Qatari government.

When the secret trips were exposed by journalists, the Jewish leaders defended their actions on the grounds that Qatar was becoming more moderate.

I don’t see anything “moderate” about Qatar hosting and sponsoring the world’s largest antisemitic media network, Al Jazeera.

I don’t see anything “moderate” about Qatar financing terrorist groups around the world.

And I don’t see anything “moderate” about Qatar rescuing and sponsoring a deadly terrorist regime along Israel’s southern border.

It’s time to take off the blinders and see Qatar for what it really is—a terror-funding outlet for antisemitic vitriol.

Stephen M. Flatow, an attorney, is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. He is the author of “A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terrorism.”