In Israel Qatar has been identified for years and certainly after the murderous October 7th attack, as belonging to the axis of evil.
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This is a result of the wide scale aid that the country grants the Hamas terror organization, whether through direct financing, or hosting its leaders in its territory or by means of its Al Jazeera, which has become the mouthpiece for Hamas.
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Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani
(Photo: Jacquelyn Martin / POOL / AFP)
The Qatari funding became a synonym for the building of the Hamas terrorist network which attacked Israel unceasingly with all of its power. The Qatari funding can be divided into two periods. The first 2007-2014 the Qatari government funded Hamas as it saw fit with no international supervision or oversight. Since 2014 until today the Qatari financing has been in coordination with Israel, the U.S. and Israel. In addition, independent Qatari financing channels have been active, with a total disregard of the Qatari authorities.
Over time the Qataris began to understand they are facing a problem, as they acquired an image of a country that finances terrorism. The subject is very delicate due to the desire to maintain very close ties with the U.S., especially before the hosting of the 2022 World Cup games. This is why Qatar always claimed the aid was earmarked for the poorest Gazan families and to extend the hours when electricity was available in Gaza.
They also claimed that the assistance was actually transferred via Israel and with its supervision. As proof, the list of the needy in Gaza was transferred monthly to Israel. The bottom line is that the Hamas government in Gaza profited immensely from the Qatari funds that flowed monthly into the Gaza Strip. This occurred by pulling the wool over the eyes of those charged with supervising the transfer of funds, it included adding of Hamas members to the list of needy and underscored the total control of Hamas over all of the economic activity in the Gaza Strip.
The U.S. published a list of those financing Hamas noting that the organization did not depend solely on funding from Qatar and Iran but had set up over the years an international economic empire that was well camouflaged under fake names and what appeared as legitimate companies. Hamas takes advantage of all countries where it has a presence to operate its funding network, and from this perspective the Hamas office operating in Qatar since 2012 is no different.
Qatar only country to back Hamas violent takeover of Gaza
Over the years Hamas leaders and activists in Qatar set up a sophisticated financing network. In the past it was reported that real estate companies owned by Hamas and registered in Qatar under so-called innocent names including those of women. Also offering assistance in the effort was Iran, which also enjoys good relations with Qatar.
Last week the U.S. published a list of names of the key players in the Hamas international financing network. Among those on the list were Mohammed Nasrallah, a Jordanian citizen and a veteran Hamas (not to be confused with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah), who has settled in the Qatari capital, Doha, and in recent years has been involved in transferring funds to Hamas, including to the military wing. Nasrallah has close ties with Iran which assists him. Israel’s relations with Qatar were not always problematic. In fact, following the Oslo agreements Qatar was one of two Gulf states that opened an interests office in Israel. Even though the office was closed in 2000, Israel and Qatar continued to have contacts under the radar including diplomatic meetings.
Cash was smuggled into Gaza through the tunnels in 2007 and Israel and Qatar found themselves at the opposite ends of the pole. This occurred after Qatar was one of the only countries to publicly expressed support for the Hamas violent takeover from the Palestinian Authority in the Gaza Strip. In 2012, the then ruler and the father of the current leader Sheikh Hamed Ben Khalifa al Thani became the first leader to visit the Hamas controlled Gaza Strip, and pledged to raise $400 million for economic reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.
These were the days of the ‘Arab Spring’ when the Mubarak regime in Egypt was toppled and this enabled the Moslem Brotherhood to come to power, the movement that served as the political model for Hamas. At the time it was reported that Qatar was transferring $100 million annually to Hamas. This is hard to prove since the transfer of funds if it occurred was carried out secretly in order to circumvent international oversight or possible sanctions or was smuggled in in cash through the tunnels to the Gaza Strip.
Prior to the toppling of the Moslem Brotherhood president Mohammed Morsi in Egypt, in July 2013, a document was publicized in the Arab media stating that the Qatari Central Bank had transferred $250 million to the Hamas. It was claimed at the time that the funds were transferred as a one-time grant to defend the Morsi regime with the assistance of the Hamas terrorists. The authenticity of the document was put in doubt, but its publication expressed the atmosphere surrounding Qatar’s actions at that time. After the fall of Morsi and the return of the military regime, it was reported that Qatar transferred $350 million grant to Hamas.
Even through there were no clear-cut proof of the actual transfer of funds, David Cohen, the U.S. deputy Treasury Secretary in 2014, declared that Qatar has been financing Hamas for years. Qatar’s actions also caught the attention of FATF, an international organization that fights money laundering and the funding of terrorism, which published an unflattering report on Qatar’s activities.
The rational that led Qatar to finance Hamas in the first place was that Islamist organizations were gaining strength and therefore would play a greater role in the future of the region. Therefore, it is important for a small country like Qatar, that feels threatened from a wide range of dangers, to retain good relations with Hamas. This policy was at its peak during the period of the ‘Arab Spring’, when it appeared that the Islamist forces had the upper hand in the Middle East.
The Protective Edge campaign in the summer of 2014 represented a turning point in the Qatari funding of the Gaza Strip. The U.S., the U.N., Qatar and Israel decided on the establishment of a new framework, by which the Qatari government would offer $30 million monthly to the Gaza Strip, of which $10 million would be earmarked for the purchase of fuel from Israel for operation of the sole power plant in the Gaza Strip, $10 million to pay the salaries of government workers, and $10 million which was to be divided equally to 100,000 needy families. This was the beginning of the building of the concept in Israel, whereby as long as the Hamas is amassing economic assets its desire to implement its murderous ideology of destroying Israel would decline. Its hard to know what percentage of the Qatari funds made their way to the Hamas military wing. The leaders of the military wing claimed over the years that they had independent means of funding.
- The author if the managing director of Concord Middle East - concordmena.com