What we know about Qatar, Hamas-funding US ally

The oil-rich Gulf state of Qatar’s influence has been widely felt during the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. While traditionally closely aligned with Iran, Hamas has pivoted to Sunni powers like Qatar and Turkey in recent years for economic and political support. Keen to expand its regional and international influence, Qatar’s ties to the Palestinian terrorist group have drawn increasing criticism from Israel, the United States, and even fellow Arab states like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, who accuse Qatar of undermining regional stability by supporting Hamas.

“Qatar is a very strange place. They rely on the U.S. for protection and invest heavily in the U.S.,” said Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), noting that the U.S. has its largest Mideast airbase—Al-Udeid Air Base—in Qatar. “[But] at the same time, just miles away from [the airbase], you can find the head of Hamas (Khaled Mashal), and there was even a Taliban embassy there for a while too. All of these things make for a foreign-policy anomaly,” Schanzer told JNS.org.

With the war raging in Gaza, Israeli leaders have begun to single out Qatar for its support of Hamas. During a meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on July 23, now-former Israeli President Shimon Peres slammed Qatar for becoming “the world’s largest funder of terror.”

“Qatar does not have the right to send money for rockets and tunnels which are fired at innocent civilians. Their funding of terror must stop. If they want to build then they should, but they must not be allowed to destroy,” Peres said.

Qatar reportedly pledged more than $400 million to Hamas in October 2012 during a visit to Gaza by Qatar’s ruling emir at the time, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.

Qatar gave refuge to Hamas’ Mashaal, who fled to Qatar’s capital of Doha when Hamas’s offices in Damascus were shut down in 2012 after the terror group’s criticism of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s conduct in the Syrian civil war.

More recently, the U.S. blocked the transfer of Qatari funds that were slated to pay the salaries of civil servants hired by Hamas in Gaza, the Times of Israel reported.