Reports reveal the illusion of a shift to moderation in Qatar, the sponsor of terrorism

Press reports warned that the world should be deceived by what Qatar is trying to promote about itself these days, confirming that Doha, which has long funded and sponsored terrorism, will never be a moderate country simply because it is organizing the World Cup.

The reports referred to a series of comments celebrating a supposed shift in Qatari policy away from encouraging and supporting radical Islamist political groups such as Hamas and the Taliban, stressing that the claims of their moderation are not true, misplaced, and dangerously misleading.

The English-language newspaper Haaretz says there has been a recent spike in comments celebrating what is often called a welcome shift in Qatar’s policies and behavior: far from encouraging and supporting radical Islamist political groups, toward “inconsistency” and moderation.

The analysis is not fundamentally correct, the paper contends, and it even plays a role in Doha’s ongoing attempts to create the illusion of rebranding as a moderate actor in the Middle East and beyond.

The newspaper added: “The fact is that Qatar’s sponsorship of extremist groups has not diminished or disappeared any of them, and does not reflect a recent ‘shift’ in Doha’s foreign policy. If there was any real transformation, it should have happened in Qatar itself, which has been sponsoring extremism and terrorism in the world for almost 20 years”.

The reports confirmed that “the argument that Qatari investment in extremist groups is “to maintain dialog and moderation with them” has started to unravel and crumble very closely”, explaining that when Qatar was criticized for transporting senior Taliban leaders on its Royal C17 from Doha to Kabul in August last year, when they took over the country, Qatari leaders responded that their strong ties with the Afghan group would modify the policies of the new Taliban government.

In September, the Taliban reportedly announced that the morality police would replace the women’s ministry. The Taliban have also reinstated executions and amputations. In March, the extremist group banned Afghan women from traveling without male escorts. This month, the Taliban stopped issuing driver’s licenses to women, and this week ordered all women to cover their faces with a burka.

If Qatar believes its strong ties with the Taliban will moderate the Afghan group, Doha would be better off thinking again.

Similarly, Qatar’s policy of softening Hamas has yet to yield results, the paper added. Despite all the Qatari money, Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar recently called on every Israeli Arab to kill as many Israeli Jews as they could.

In a speech on April 30, Sinwar said: “Whoever has a gun should take it, and whoever has no gun should take a butcher knife or an ax or whatever knife they can get”.

Haaretz added that Hamas has reportedly halted jihad by firing rockets at Israel, but that was unlikely because of Qatari money or relations, and more likely because of Hamas’s calculations that incite Israeli Arabs and Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem to launch a third intifada, which would be more cost-effective for Gaza’s authoritarian rulers. A full-scale war with Israel would only lead to widespread destruction in the Strip, weakening Hamas’s grip and doing little to hurt Israel or distract it from Iran’s nuclear program.

A year before he became Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian hinted that pro-Iranian militias like Hamas allow Iran to better confront Israel.

The report noted that Doha supports Hamas by $360-480 million annually. “With one-third of that money, Qatar buys the fuel it then ships to Gaza, where Hamas sells it and gets its revenues; the other third goes to poor families in Gaza, while the other third pays bureaucratic salaries to Hamas.

Qatari spending in Gaza may seem humane, but in fact, Doha funds Hamas’s coffers through oil sales. Doha also funds Hamas’s social services, the main tool of the organization’s rent-seeking network that helps Hamas maintain support among Palestinians, in the Strip as well as across the West Bank and Jerusalem. Without Qatari money, Hamas control of Gaza would have been impossible and its popularity among Palestinians would have collapsed.