by Robert Williams
"Qatar is at the top of funding terrorism worldwide.... Even more than Iran." — Udi Levy, a former senior official of Israel's Mossad spy agency who dealt with economic warfare against terrorist organizations, YNet, April 18, 2024.
It was disclosed last week that Qatar has been funding US institutions of learning for years with donations amounting to more than $400 billion. Those were just the ones for which there were receipts.
Qatar also hosts the forward headquarters of US Central Command (CENTCOM) at Al Udeid Air Base in addition to a recent promise from the Trump administration to defend the emirate if it is attacked.
It is hardly a secret that Qatar is no friend to Israel. Qatar has been called "A genocidal anti-Israel propaganda machine." After Trump leaves office, will Qatar be one of the new launchpads from which to try to eliminate the Jewish State?
During the first Trump administration, the US warned Israel that "security cooperation with the U.S. could be reduced," due to a deal signed with China's Shanghai International Port Group to operate a new terminal at Haifa Port, where the U.S. Navy ships often dock. How come the US does not have the same concerns with Qatar?
Wherever you look, Western leaders are engaging in policies that invite civilizational suicide by arming enemies of the West who would like to see it dead. Sadly, the last place one would expect such policies is the Trump administration. It claims it wants to "Make America Great Again." Now it has been incentivizing countries -- such as Qatar, Turkey and Pakistan -- that want to "Make States that Sponsor Terrorism Great Again."
"Qatar," according to Udi Levy, a former senior official of Israel's Mossad spy agency who dealt with economic warfare against terrorist organizations, "is at the top of funding terrorism worldwide.... Even more than Iran."
It was disclosed last week that Qatar has been funding US institutions of learning for years with donations amounting to more than $400 billion. Those were just the ones for which there were receipts.
US President Donald J. Trump is reportedly strengthening Qatar's military and giving immunity from any potential future attack by supplying it with state-of-the-art counter-drone capabilities, including Raytheon's FS-LIDS system, for which Qatar will be "the first international customer," the Trump administration recently boasted. Qatar is also purchasing the MQ-9B SkyGuardian remotely piloted aircraft system ("the most advanced multi-mission remotely piloted aircraft in the world").
Qatar already has a fleet of F-15 fighter jets and AH-64 Apache attack helicopters. That does not even count what weapons systems Qatar has procured from the Europeans and Communist China.
Since 2014, when all Qatar had to show for itself was a negligible defensive air force, the emirate has been able to attain, according to MEMRI, "one of the most powerful air fleets in the Middle East."
Qatar also hosts the forward headquarters of US Central Command (CENTCOM) at Al-Udeid Air Base in addition to a recent promise from the Trump administration to defend the emirate if it is attacked.
The rapid increase in Qatar's military power is a direct reflection of the strides that the terror-sponsoring and terror-propagandizing Islamist state has been able to make in its gradual buy-up of a greedy and flatterable Western world.
President Barack H. Obama began promising fighter jets to Qatar. He approved the sale of F-15s at the end of his term in 2016. It was, however, the first Trump administration that ultimately signed and finalized the fighter jets deal in 2017, ironically after Trump himself had declared that "the nation of Qatar, unfortunately, has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level."
Significantly, this announcement came at a time when Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and Bahrain had cut diplomatic ties with Qatar, closed their borders and airspace to Qatar, and imposed an economic blockade that lasted more than three years, to counter "Qatar's embrace of various terrorist and sectarian groups aimed at destabilizing the region, including the Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Qaeda, Daesh and groups supported by Iran," according to Saudi Arabia.
Arming Qatar is a terrible idea: Qatar is most likely still supporting most of the same terrorist forces. What is to stop Qatar from supplying terrorist groups with the very military technology to which the US is giving it access?
Empowering Qatar is irresponsible – not just to the region, but to the US and the world at large.
It is hardly a secret that Qatar is no friend to Israel. Qatar has been called "A genocidal anti-Israel propaganda machine." After Trump leaves office, will Qatar be one of the new launchpads from which to try to eliminate the Jewish State?
The US and Qatar, during Trump's visit in May, agreed that this terror-sponsoring Islamist state would be investing up to $38 billion "in potential investments including support for burden-sharing at Al Udeid Air Base and future defense capabilities related to air defense and maritime security."
Communist China's Huawei is supplying Qatar's telecommunications network, deepening its AI engagement in Qatar and building "smart cities" to surveil everyone.
The Trump administration, however, evidently has no problem operating in Qatar, hostile as it is to the entire West, and presumably swarming in Chinese spying devices. During the first Trump administration, the US warned Israel that "security cooperation with the U.S. could be reduced," due to a deal signed with China's Shanghai International Port Group to operate a new terminal at Haifa Port, where the U.S. Navy ships often dock. How come the US does not have the same concerns with Qatar?
Robert Williams is based in the United States.
Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/22593/trump-qatar-terrorism
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