David Strom writes at HotAir.com about inconvenient news for the Biden State Department.
I have long been wondering about Qatar’s willingness to host Hamas’ leadership post-10/7.
As non-Western as Qatar is, the Emirate has been working assiduously to court Western approval and is hardly a radical Islamist state. This is not to suggest the regime is liberal or Liberal, but rather that they aren’t exactly Iranian-style fanatics. The state is pretty much what you would expect in a country that is in a dangerous region filled with radicals but with an elite who are Western-educated and resolutely capitalist.
I had long suspected that Western governments had given implicit approval for Qatar’s hosting of the radical Islamist terrorist group’s leaders in order to use it as a back-channel to Hamas. Surprisingly, It turns out that I was right. …
… “WASHINGTON — Qatar’s Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani proposed expeling Hamas’s leaders from Doha during a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken days after the terror group’s October 7 onslaught, two officials familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel on Wednesday.” …
… That this story leaked is likely due to Qatar’s frustration with the enduring criticism it has suffered since 10/7. The country has been accused of coddling Hamas’ leaders–and no doubt it sure looks that way–and given the country’s obvious efforts to court Westerners, it surely rankled.
“When Blinken began his own remarks, he didn’t respond directly to the emir’s proposal but did go on to say that he thought it would be better for Qatar to use its contacts with Hamas — through the office it allowed the terror group to establish in Doha in 2012 at Washington’s behest — to mediate between the Gaza war parties to secure a hostage deal, the officials recalled. They added that the US secretary of state also clarified that it would not be ‘business as usual’ for Hamas in Qatar once the conflict concludes.”
