Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal lives in Qatar, and today Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas is to meet him in Doha.
Is it even news?
What follows is about an hour’s worth of “scraping” across various searches containing the terms “Doha”, “Qatar”, “banking”, “financing”, “terror”, “terrorism”, “Hamas”, “Mashaal” – like Adolph, he’s achieved last name status — “funding”, etc.
The reportage underscores the idea that the Middle East Conflict has been sustained by an anti-Semitism that has its end the supersession of Islam, the same story that paved the way for Hitler’s adaptation of German Christian eschatology into the construction of the Nazi program of genocide that became the Holocaust.
Different talk?
Same walk.
Perhaps the question for Washington and the American public at large should be, “How did all this money and confusion get into our America the beautiful?”
Although Saudi Arabia has pledged $100 million to anti-terrorism activity, the sectarian Sunni vs Shiite competition nonetheless plays through the politics. There’s simply an awful lot of cash in the pool, and the pool would seem as dirty as it can be.
For the day, perhaps for its long history of shady banking and association with well known promoters of Islamic terrorism, Qatar perhaps deserves greater focus and increased scrutiny as a state-sponsor of terrorism, and if not for direct financing then for allowing or enabling indirect financing of the same criminality under its (therefore incompetent) auspices.
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency have fined Qatar’s Doha Bank – New York branch a $5m civil money penalty. According to FinCEN and the OCC, the bank’s branch in Manhattan – USA was engaged in high-risk services accompanied by lack of adequate anti-money laundering controls which led to the failure to report $7.4bn-worth of suspicious transactions in a timely manner.
http://www.acc-co.com/content.asp?ContentId=598 – 4/23/2009
Related four years later:
“The core disconnect between Washington and these two countries on the issue of terrorist financing stems from their unique political dynamics and security calculations, which drive them both to allow some local fundraising channels for foreign extremist and other groups. These dynamics also determine the extent of Kuwaiti and Qatari cooperation with America’s counter-terrorist financing agenda. Accordingly, Washington should not expect substantive changes in their approach to terrorist financing unless a shift occurs in some aspect of these basic calculations.”
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/the-terrorist-funding-disconnect-with-qatar-and-kuwait – 5/2/2014.
Though you wouldn’t know it from visiting Qatar Islamic Bank’s web site, because they choose not to disclose their Shariah advisory board there, the chairman of the bank’s Shariah Advisory Board is none other than Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a man we have referred to in the past as “Creepy Qaradawi.”
http://www.shariahfinancewatch.org/blog/2010/10/04/qatar-islamic-bank-wins-bank-of-the-year-award-at-the-arabian-business-awards/ – 10/4/2010.
Related, four year later:
“Responding to reports that the Egyptian-born Qatari cleric had been sent to Tunisia or Yemen, Al Qaradawi said on his official Twitter and Facebook accounts that he has spent over 53 years in Qatar preaching, calling and writing about Islam “without anyone telling me before what to say, what not to say or why are you saying that.”
http://dohanews.co/al-qaradawi-debunks-rumors-deported-qatar/ – 4/20/2014.
Recently, a group called the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) raised about $6.5 million in Qatar. The group is led by Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi, a top Muslim Brotherhood cleric who calls himself the “Mufti of Martyrdom Operations.” He never shies from supporting Hamas and suicide bombings and got into a bit of hot water in 2009 when he said that the Holocaust was a judgment upon the Jews from Allah. He prays that the Muslims will deliver the next judgment. In November, the IUMS declared that Muslims must “revive the duty of jihad in all its forms” and prepare for the destruction of Israel.
http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/americas-friend-terror-funding-qatar – 5/20/2014.
In the 1990s, Doha was among the most active “financiers” behind the separatist rebellion in Chechnya. It sent money to local militants and trained Arab terrorists who participated in attacks on the Russian Army in the North Caucasus. When the rebellion was put down and peace began returning to Chechnya and the Arab “mujahedin” were almost completely destroyed, Qatar’s Emir provided a refuge for Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, “president” of the self-proclaimed Republic of Ichkeria and his many supporters, providing them with benefits and even government jobs.
http://moneyjihad.wordpress.com/2013/06/04/qatar-state-sponsor-of-terrorism/ – 6/4/2013.
Cited Source:
http://orientalreview.org/2013/05/23/qatar-is-funding-international-terrorism/comment-page-1/ – 5/23/2013.
Most notably, Qatar, a longtime U.S. ally, has for many years openly financed Hamas, a group that continues to undermine regional stability. Press reports indicate that the Qatari government is also supporting extremist groups operating in Syria. To say the least, this threatens to aggravate an already volatile situation in a particularly dangerous and unwelcome manner.
With new leadership in Doha, we remain hopeful that Qatar – a country that in other respects has been a constructive partner in countering terrorism – will continue to work closely with us to oppose and combat those who adhere to the warped and murderous ideology of Hamas and al-Qa’ida.
http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl2308.aspx – 3/4/2014.
Qatar, no less than any other person or state, cannot have it both ways, and the remarks by the Treasury Department’s Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, David Cohen, do little to inspire confidence in change. In fact the excerpt from his speech fits well within this collection of cited material in that even a subjective researcher’s haul actually reflects what is immediately available through the search engines: the headlines are simply NOT screaming, “Qatar cleans up banking, expels Khaled Mashaal, exiles Quaradawi” or some such. The drift appears quite opposite of that.
While Hamas tactics directly orchestrate the murder of children in Gaza and in Israel (it’s certainly attempted by the hour), the bankers and royals of Qatar comfortably keep company with fellow billionaire Mashaal. They’re living large, and Gazans have been made to live very small because of them.
The Clinton Foundation and the terror group Hamas share a key donor: The government of Qatar, a leading backer of terror groups that has emerged in recent years as Hamas’ chief financial lifeline.
Qatar, which has been designated by the State Department as a “significant terrorist financing risk,” has pledged more than $400 million to Hamas since 2012 and has long harbored one of the terror group’s senior leaders, Khaled Mashaal.
At the same time, Qatar has sought to curry favor with elite Westerners, donating between $1 million and $5 million through 2013 to the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.
http://freebeacon.com/politics/clinton-foundation-hamas-share-major-donor/ – 7/11/2014.
Apaches and Javelin defense systems are heading off to Qatar as part of our wonderful relationship with the terror-sponsoring nation that also happens to share close ties with Hamas and Al Qaeda. The weapons are valued at $11 billion.
http://www.independentsentinel.com/obamas-11-billion-arms-deal-with-terror-sponsoring-nation-of-qatar/ – 7/22/2014.
“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.
http://www.jns.org/latest-articles/2014/7/25/gaza-conflict-spotlights-role-of-qatar-the-hamas-funding-us-ally#.U_XzEsVdV8E= – 7/25/2014.
It’s getting harder and harder to deny that Doha and Ankara, two long-standing allies of the United States, are full Hamas partners.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/08/04/hamas_s_bffs_turkey_qatar_israel_gaza – 8/4/2014.
HAIFA, Israel – The latest ceasefire between Israel and Hamas ended Friday morning when Hamas resumed its costly campaign of rocket attacks on Israel even as its 2 million constituents suffer from wrenching poverty.
Although the millions of Palestinians packed into the small strip suffer from chronic unemployment, and lack of electricity and running water, Hamas and its backers such as Qatar have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on tunnels and rockets with one goal in mind: killing Israelis.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/08/08/hamas-backers-spend-fortunes-on-rockets-and-tunnels-while-gazans-live-in-misery/ – 8/8/2014.
“Qatar has three Knesset seats for terrorism,” Kariv said, according to Israel Hayom.
http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/08/18/israeli-arab-knesset-members-visit-hamas-funding-qatar/ – 8/18/2014.
“There will be no return to negotiations in Cairo before we have ensured favorable circumstances that will force the enemy to meet the demands of the Palestinians.”
Mashaal said that the Palestinians’ top demand was the lifting of the blockade on Gaza
http://www.timesofisrael.com/mashaal-hamas-defiant-after-assassinations/#ixzz3B2DFDgVG – 8/21/2014.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will meet Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and the emir of Qatar, in Doha Thursday, according to sources in Ramallah.
http://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Abbas-to-meet-Mashaal-Qatar-emir-in-Doha-371720 – 8/21/2014.
Related Reference
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/08/20/German-minister-accuses-Qatar-of-financing-ISIS-.html – 8/20/2014.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/14/america-s-allies-are-funding-isis.html – 6/14/2014.
http://cnsnews.com/video/cnsnews/former-british-intelligence-chief-speaks-substantial-and-sustained-saudi-funding-isis – 7/9/2014.
Dickinson, Elizabeth. Playing with Fire: Why Private Gulf Financing for Syria’s Extremist Rebels Risks Igniting Sectarian Conflict at Home. Saban Center, Brookings, December 2013.
Addendum – 8/24/2014.
Qatar – Accusations Denied – Region Opaque
Either the state has been maligned, the state is lying in some part, or the state hasn’t control of its wealth or revenue throughput.
Every time out on this perilous blog brings insight into the fast mediated conflict environment. How would one report news from the “left” without compromising with the demands of an Hamas or PLO/PA . . . or an ISIS? Is there time to ask a question when a camera hog tells you, more or less, that “proof is irrefutable” and the news has been reported already by the CIA, West Point, The Washington Post? Do you says “Wait a minute” at the first assertion or do you give the talker his rope?
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