Qatar – solution or problem!?
Qatar seems to be the “go-to guy” for almost anything important going on in the last few months, especially over the last weeks. The influence of the Emir Tamim Bin Hadad Al-Thani has grown completely out of proportion, and for a good reason: Qatar invests heavily in the Western world, in the democratic strongholds of Europe, in industry as well as media. On the other hand, Qatar invests massively in Salafi institutions and entities, terror organizations and fundamentalistic clerics and opinionmakers. Qatar is not only holding the stick at both ends, it owns the stick. In a time of crisis, there seems to be no-one else you can trust, or can you!?
Qatar is a very small country with a Salafist Emir ruling it and very little to offer except natural gas. This makes Qatar highly attractive to any provider of security and would render the Emir dependable on whoever takes that part. This equation is unacceptable to Tamim Bin Hadad Al-Thani, who increased investments directly and through funds, mainly Qatar Holding LLC and QIA, to counter-weight this dependency. While the US market is targeted to assure that the Al Udeid Air base stays active, the European market is already in a stage of self-sufficient takeover. The opportunity provided by the Ukraine war and the discrepancies with Russia as the main gas provider to Europe allowed Qatar to quadruple the ownership of monumental corporations, funded with European money. The more gas they buy, the more they lose their ownership of the pillars of their industry, and eventually, of their society. Qatar buys football clubs, Real estate, buys influence on media, invests in universities to change opinions and premonitions about Islam.
These days, with yet another crisis in the Middle-East, Western countries stand in line for an audience with the Emir of Qatar, who may well have the solution for this situation, but undoubtedly has an overwhelming part in the problem and how it came about. Over the years, Qatar not only paid for the welfare of the Gaza Palestinians, but funded Hamas, provided them with weapons and technology and made sure that their only inclination would be the destruction of Israel. Al-Thani took over almost all of Gaza, thus providing him with a military (maybe para-military) force at his disposal, recruiting not a single soldier himself. Qatar is willing to pay for education, as long as it is indoctrinating against democracy, for accommodation, as long as it’s provided to families of active terrorists and for human rights, as long as they call the shots what these organizations should discredit and what not.
After all, there is an alternative, one that has shown success in the past. Egypt is the traditional go-to country. It has volume, it has status and has the right connections. And above all, it is not committed to the survival of Hamas, whereas it has pledged to take care of the Palestinian people. Saudi Arabia should also be considered and there should be a clear message to who-ever supports terror: you cannot eat the cake and have it too. Qatar was banned in 2017 for supporting terror, not by Western countries, but led by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt, later Jordan and supported by the Maldives, Mauritania, Senegal, Djibouti, the Comoros, and the Tobruk-based government in Libya. It maybe helpful, but it sends the wrong message.
You should ask yourself one question, and one question only: Why approach someone for help, if he himself has put you, or your allies, in this tough spot in the first place? In fact, any chance given, he will do it again! Not only against this democracy, but any democracy, preferably the leading democracies in the world. Buying out ivy-league universities all over the US, turning human rights for African Americans into Islamic rights, labeling liberalism as the basic right to disregard minority rights, almost rewriting American history to shake the pillars of what’s right and wrong in Western society, seeding conspiracy and distrust.
Other democracy strongholds have already deep cracks in their moral fiber and principles, where large indoctrinated Islamic crowds confront and conquer the liberal European mindset, as in the UK, Belgium and France. This doesn’t happen by chance – it is the outcome of a well-designed plan to make Europe dependent on Qatar (and Iran) when the time comes.
Negotiating with Qatar on terror issues is like feeding the beast: It keeps on going and ultimately you’ll end up as its next meal.
