I feel some sympathy for the British royal family because of the ghastly people they are forced to meet. The late Queen had to greet Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu, Idi Amin and Robert Mugabe. This week the King and Prince and Princess of Wales had to meet the Emir of Qatar and his wife.
True to form, the state media in Britain managed to miss every major problem with this. The BBC did say that there might be protests around the visit because of Qatar’s record on ‘LGBT rights’. But more troubling is that Britain should ever have welcomed the leadership of such a sordid, terrorist-supporting statelet.
It’s troubling that Britain should have welcomed the leadership of a sordid, terrorist-supporting statelet
For two decades now Qatar has been one of the leading supporters, funders and hosts of the proscribed terrorist group Hamas. They have transferred billions of dollars to Hamas, and the Emir and his family continue to host the group’s leadership in luxury hotels and apartments in Doha.
Of course at this point the ‘wise heads’ in Whitehall will point out that Qatar is a major investor in the UK, owning as they do such properties as Harrods. Funnily enough, even before the recent revelations about Mohamed Fayed, ownership of Harrods is not a demonstration of anything good, apart from having oodles of money.
Qatar certainly has that. Over recent years they have used it to pollute some of our first- and second-tier institutions, such as King’s College London. In the US they have been even more munificent. There is no coincidence in the fact that almost every American university that has played host to pro-Hamas protests over the past 14 months is also the recipient of wads of bribes from Qatar’s slush-fund.
And it isn’t as though any of this is far from the palace. The Emir’s family are intensely tied up with the terrorism. On the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar this year, the current Emir’s mother – the gruesome Sheikha Moza – mourned and praised Sinwar. Her reaction to the killing of the mastermind of the 7 October massacres was to say: ‘The name Yahya means the one who lives. They thought him dead, but he lives on. He will live on and they will be gone.’ She accompanied this post – written in English– with a verse from the Quran: ‘Never think of those martyred in the cause of Allah as dead. In fact, they are alive by their Lord, well provided for.’
A visit to London by this family ought to be a good moment to raise a couple of objections. For instance the Emir’s friends in Hamas are still holding – among 100 other hostages – the British-Israeli citizen Emily Damari. Now 28 years old, she has been held captive by Hamas for 14 months. One of the very few countries in the world which has any leverage at all over Hamas is Qatar. But the Qataris play a game of double-dealing so simple that even David Lammy ought to see through it. That game is to pretend to be a broker while all the time being an enemy. The Qataris pretend that thanks to their support of Hamas, they are in a wonderful position to influence the group. Which is like saying that because I have a gang of blood-thirsty thugs on my payroll, I am in a perfect position to act as a deal-maker with them. It is a mobster trick.
Also worth noting is that the Qataris are the founders, funders and propagandists behind the terrorist-employing channel Al Jazeera. Its reporters, ‘journalists’ and others from Qatar’s propaganda networks have also spent recent weeks mourning the death of Hamas’s leaders. The network’s leaders and anchors praised Sinwar as ‘a role model’ and ‘a peerless leader’. But that may be because so many of Al Jazeera’s ‘journalists’ are themselves terrorists.
For instance, during this war it turned out that Al Jazeera’s Muhammad Washah was moonlighting for Hamas in rocket development. Their ‘journalists’ have been found in Hamas vehicles while they were firing drones at Israel. When another of their number – Ismail Abu Omar – was hurt in Gaza this year, the network claimed that he had been ‘deliberately targeted’ because he was a journalist. What they failed to mention was that Omar was also the deputy commander of Hamas’s eastern battalion in Khan Yunis. He was also on camera on the 7 October, screaming support for the terrorists and boasting that Palestinian children would ‘play with the heads’ of the Jews he was watching getting murdered.
And just for good measure, one of Al Jazeera’s contributors was recently found to be writing articles about the plight of Gazans while holding three Israeli hostages in his own home where they were tortured. Al Jazeera is not just another television station. It is a propaganda network which employs terrorists to spread lies around the planet.
But western countries – including this one – find it very hard to turn down that Qatari cash. Just last week the Oxford Union played host to a debate in which Arab students screamed support for terrorism and again lamented the death of terrorist leaders. Interestingly enough, the Oxford Union has been the beneficiary of a highly lucrative deal with the Qataris.
What to do about all this? Well, the US has a military base in Qatar which they should move to the Emirates as fast as possible. Leave the Qataris to whichever winds of the region decide to blow over them. And as for their royal family? From Sheikha Moza down they should become pariahs. Sanction them, prevent them from travelling, seize their assets. Let them continue with their slave state and their terror-sponsoring. But not with our blessing. The stench that followed Yahya Sinwar should follow the Qataris around on their trips to boutiques in London, Paris and other western capitals. Not all the perfumes of Arabia – or stores in Knightsbridge – should be able to sweeten their bloody little hand.
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