American allies, especially Qatar and Turkey, have been providing
material support to Hamas, which the United States has listed as a
foreign terrorist organization. This support includes financial,
diplomatic, media and even the provision of weapons that deliberately
target Israeli civilians from behind Palestinian civilians who are used
as human shields. It also includes harboring war criminals, especially
leaders of Hamas, who direct their followers from the safety of Doha.
Without the support of Qatar and Turkey, Hamas would never have started
this bloody war that has caused so much human suffering.
Qatar, which is more of a family-owned gas station than a real
country, regards itself as untouchable because of its oil wealth. Its
residents—they are not really citizens because there are no genuine
elections or freedom of speech or religion—are the richest in the world.
It can buy anything it wants, including the 2022 World Cup, several
American university campuses, some of the world's greatest art, Al
Jazeera television and other luxuries. It can also buy terrorist groups
such as Hamas. Indeed, after Iran, which is the world's worst state
sponsor of terrorism, Qatar ranks near the top of this dishonor role of
death.
Any individual who provides material support to a designated
terrorist group such as Hamas commits a crime under the United States
Penal law and the laws of several European countries. If Hamas were ever
to be convicted of war crimes by the International Criminal Court, as
it may well be, any individual who was an accessory to such crimes would
be guilty as well. It is entirely fair, therefore, to describe Qatar as
a criminal regime, guilty of accessory to mass murder.
In some ways Turkey is even worse. Its erratic prime minister, Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, has incited anti-Semitism, provoked conflict with
Israel, provided material support to Hamas and undercut efforts to
achieve a realistic end to the Gaza War. He has demanded that his Jewish
subjects do his bidding, telling "our Jewish citizens' leaders" that
they must "adopt a firm stance and release a statement against the
Israeli government." He has suggested that if they fail to do so they
will not be regarded as "good Turks," thus raising the old canard of
"dual loyalty."
Erdogan also recently said of Israel that "they always curse Hitler,
but they now even exceed him in barbarism." And he responded to
Americans who complain about the "comparisons with Hitler," by saying
"You're American, what's Hitler got to do with you," forgetting that
Hitler's forces killed thousands of American soldiers and civilians. He
also conveniently forgets that Turkey, which remained immorally
"neutral" in the war against Nazism, provided Hitler with the playbook
for his genocide, by its own genocide against Armenians. As Hitler asked
rhetorically when planning his genocide: "Who, after all, speaks today
of the annihilation of the Armenians?" So Hitler matters to America, as
it should to Turkey, which still mendaciously denies that it committed
genocide against the Armenians.
Yet it was Qatar and Turkey to which Secretary of State John Kerry
turned in his efforts to get Israel and Hamas to agree to a cease fire.
This not only infuriated Israel, which considers these two countries as
accessories to Hamas' war crimes, but also Jordan, Egypt and the
Palestinian Authority, which also see Qatar and Turkey as allies of
Hamas and enemies of moderate Arab states.
The time has come for the United States and the international
community to reassess the status of Qatar and Turkey. These two
countries have become part of the problem, rather than part of the
solution. A nation that hosts Hamas leaders and finances their terrorism
should not also host the World Cup. Nor should American universities
send their faculty and students to a nation complicit in terrorism that
has taken the lives of many Americans as well as Israelis.
Turkey's role in NATO must also be reevaluated. Membership in this
organization entails certain responsibilities, and Turkey has failed in
these responsibilities. They have become untrustworthy partners in the
quest for peace.
It is a truism that we, as a nation, must deal with devils, because
men and women are not angels. I do not fault Secretary of State Kerry
for trying to use Qatar and Turkey to pressure Hamas into accepting a
deal, although the deal they ultimately came up with was a bad one. My
point is that Qatar's wealth and Turkey's size should not preclude us
from telling it as it is: Qatar and Turkey are among the worst villains
in the Gaza tragedy. Nor should we reward such villains, and such
complicit in war crimes, by international gifts, such as the World Cup.
Both Qatar and Turkey should be treated as pariahs unless and until they
stop becoming state sponsors, supporters and facilitators of terrorism.
Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4561/qatar-gaza
Radical Islam Monitor in Southeast Europe
