A Long Time Coming for Qatar

Al Jazeera and Hamas-hosting appeasers face reality as Israelis strike terrorist commanders in the outcast Gulf state.

Last week, Israel took military action against leaders of Hamas, using aircraft to bomb a site in Qatar used by the the terrorist group’s leaders. It was a long time coming for a country that has danced with the devil.

Hamas is the terrorist wing of the Muslim Brotherhood political Islam movement. It invaded Israel from Gaza in October 2023 in barbarous manner, intentionally murdering noncombatant Israelis and Americans, including children, women and the elderly. Hamas and Israel have basically been at war ever since. Hamas still holds civilians taken hostage two years ago in deplorable conditions.

Many around the world have shed tears for Hamas in recent days.

Emanuel Macron, the unpopular president of France, huffed that the Israeli action was “unacceptable, whatever the reason.”

Keir Starmer, the unpopular prime minister of Britain and informal head of the welcome wagon for uncontrolled migration to England said it was a “flagrant violation of Qatar’s sovereignty” that risked “further escalation across the region.” That would be a neat trick.

Even the Trump administration equivocated. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said:

This morning, the Trump administration was notified by the United States military that Israel was attacking Hamas, which very unfortunately was located in a section of Doha, the capital of Qatar. Unilaterally bombing inside Qatar, a sovereign nation and close ally of the United States that is working very hard and bravely taking risks with us to broker peace, does not advance Israel or America’s goals. However, eliminating Hamas, who have profited off the misery of those living in Gaza, is a worthy goal.

The statement is a jumble, perhaps intentionally so.

Is Qatar really a U.S. ally? It’s questionable: Washington signed a Defense Cooperation Agreement with Doha in 1992, and in 2022 designated Qatar as a so-called “Major Non-NATO Ally.” But neither agreement requires either party to come to the other’s defense if attacked, which is the historical definition of an alliance.

However, some would say the Qataris have something better: a U.S. military base on its soil. Isn’t that superior to the formal alliance that we have with, say, the Baltics, which are indefensible? Udeid Air Base in Qatar has long been the host of not only an impressive flight line but the “Centcom Forward” in-theater command reporting to U.S. Central Command in Tampa. But it would be a mistake to call Qatar an ally.

A better description would be the chief appeaser among otherwise-stout Gulf monarchies who are clear in their opposition to political Islam and its chief adherents—the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran’s clerical regime. Qatar has long chosen a different course, even though those forces are determined to overthrow all of the monarchies of the Gulf and replace them with theocratic tyrannies. This has been true since at least the 1960s when one of the Brotherhood’s bigs, Sayyid Qutb, learned to hate America by studying at an American university and called for the overthrow of the Egyptian government and Gulf monarchies.

Opinions vary as to when Qatar decided to fit the description Winston Churchill gave so aptly to those that conduct themselves this way: "An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”

A turning point might have been in 1996 when the Qatari royal family launched Aljazeera, a Doha-based Arabic news network that is almost as anti-American as the BBC or CNN. During the Iraq War, as one former White House senior official reminded me recently, its broadcasts were inciting the killing of American soldiers. Members of the National Security Council gave serious consideration to using military force against the Qatari broadcaster’s headquarters, but opted instead to complain to the royal family in Doha. Senior royals promised action and then did nothing. Americans died.

In April 2003, a U.S. warplane bombed Aljazeera’s headquarters in Baghdad. The Pentagon said it was an accident. Too bad. Throughout the war, the Pentagon contended Aljazeera journalists not only cheered on the insurgents, but colluded with them. In 2005, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld claimed quite plausibly that Aljazeera journalists cooperated with Iraqi insurgents to film attacks on U.S. troops.

What’s next on the hit parade for our Qatari ally? What do the other Gulf states think of it? Despite a current period of detente, there was a recent episode from 2017-2021 during which nearly all of the Gulfies sanctioned and isolated Qatar. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Bahrain led an effort to isolate and punish Qatar for its support for Hamas, ISIS and al Qaeda. Doha was also playing footsie with Turkey and Iran, both of which joust with the Guflies for influence across the Middle East and, if further empowered, would invariably deliver worse political and military outcomes in the region as far as U.S. national interests are concerned.

Also among the Gulfies’ other complaints during the standoff were Qatar’s support for Aljazeera and involvement in efforts to subvert the other Gulf monarchies. The political and economic conflict ended in 2021, thanks in part to misguided Biden administration efforts that failed to recognize Qatar as a culprit.

Has Doha reformed? Evidence is lacking. If anything, there is deeper collusion between Qatar and Turkey throughout the Middle East than when Doha was ostracized. Aljzaeera still fans the flames of anti-Americanism and political Islam. Qatar doesn’t just host the leadership of Hamas, it also funds the terrorist group’s activities under the guise of “humanitarian support.”

Much of this malfeasance is unknown in the United States and understated in Washington thanks to an impressive influence-buying operation conducted by the Qatari government in the United States.

As for the often-made claim that the Doha channel is necessary since without it there would be no way to communicate with Hamas, there is reason for doubt. Oman in the past has served as a mechanism for discussion with Hamas without taking the further step of becoming a center of Hamas operations. Oman has also facilitated talks between Washington and the Houthis and its Iranian sponsors. Historically, it has never been hard to find a place to talk to our enemies when such talk might be mutually beneficial.

But in striking Hamas in Qatar, Israel may have concluded it no longer needs any channel to Hamas. The war has gone on since October 2023 and Israel has defied nearly unified foreign opposition to militarily invading and occupying Gaza City—seemingly the last place in Gaza for Hamas to hide. Incumbent in this is a decision to occupy Gaza indefinitely. A vague and hoped-for solution to Gaza like an Arab force takeover or something akin to Egypt’s military government will never materialize—as was pretty obvious from the beginning of the war.

As for the United States, we still suffer from an affliction that dates to the days after the 9/11 attacks, which is an inability to recognize political Islam as an enduring threat to America, relying instead on euphemisms to describe the political-military force like “radical Islam” or “violent extremism.” Trump has done much better than every other president in seeing the Middle East clearly. But not fingering Doha’s footsie with the Brotherhood and other malevolent forces is a weakness. Yes, we have a big military base in the country, but the War Department has bases around the Middle East and plenty of governments willing to host U.S. military forces.

If there is a lesson to be learned from Israel’s strike on Qatar it would be for the Qatari government to take a long hard look at its loser friends. History suggests it will not take that step—and feels little pressure to do, including from the United States.