[Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”]
Israel’s attack on Qatari soil was indeed a shock to the world, but should it have been? Let’s first look at some reaction to Israel’s strike against senior Hamas leaders on Qatar’s soil, which is said to have killed five Hamas members but not its top leaders. The New York Times has wasted no time in an article that struck at the heart of America’s relationship with Israel, suggesting that America risks alienating Gulf “powers” over Israel’s actions. Once again, the leftist NYT prioritizes Islamic interests over American and Israel’s. “Israel’s Attack on Qatari Soil Leads Gulf Powers to Question U.S. Protection,” by Vivian Nereim, New York Times, September 10, 2025:
Qatar hosts the largest American military base in the Middle East, has bought billions of dollars worth of defense systems from the United States and recently gifted a luxury Boeing jet to President Trump.
Yet on Tuesday, none of that stopped Israel, a key U.S. ally, from launching a brazen military attack on Qatari soil. It was an attempt to assassinate senior Hamas officials who had gathered to discuss a cease-fire proposal to pause the war in Gaza — a deal that was backed by Mr. Trump.
“Qatar being unable to protect its own citizens with literally the U.S. Central Command on its territory has prompted locals to question the value of the American partnership,” said Kristin Diwan, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, a research group. “It’s a real problem for Gulf leaders. And it should worry the United States as well.”…..
It is high time that Muslim countries be more worried about their relations with America than the other way around.
Trump posted on his Truth Social account:
Qatar is not a genuine ally and friend to the US. It is, along with Turkey, a leading supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). In fact, it is a financial backer of MB infiltration of America at the highest levels, as well as on campuses. Qatar continues to provide one of the largest sources of funding at American universities, which has a severe detrimental impact upon their culture and climate by “fomenting growing levels of antisemitic discourse and campus politics at US universities, as well as growing support for anti-democratic values within these institutions of higher education.” Qatar is dedicated to jihad; that poses an extreme danger to America’s values, stability, national security, and to the survival of Israel as a nation. To expect Qatar to negotiate a so-called “peace” in Gaza is a stark case of the fox guarding the henhouse.
Meanwhile, America’s neighbor Canada joined Qatar in condemning the Israeli attack on Qatari soil. Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney called it “an intolerable expansion of violence and an affront to Qatar’s sovereignty.”
As expected, the UN has also condemned Israel:
When the shock of Israel’s attack on Qatari soil wears off, one hopes that more leaders in the West will come to their senses. Hamas documents have also shown deep ties and coordination between Qatar and Hamas.
Last month, Azmi Bishara, a senior advisor to Qatar’s Emir Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani, spoke out against calls for normalization between Israel and Arab countries, especially Syria. He warned Syria that normalization with Israel is “poison,” and that giving up the Golan Heights reflects weakness. Bishara, who was a former member of the Israeli Knesset, who defected to Qatar in 2007 after being suspected of spying for Hizballah, “is now a prominent figure in Doha’s decision-making circles” and media.
According to the Counter Extremism Project, the Muslim Brotherhood “has had a profound influence on the belief system that fuels al-Qaeda and ISIS. These groups share ideological underpinnings based on the writings of the late Brotherhood ideologue Sayyid Qutb.”
The collaborations between Qatari media and the Islamic scholars of the country are fully exposed in the article HERE. Last month, journalists, influencers, and Islamic scholars in Qatar disdainfully opposed a United Nations call to disarm Hamas. They also rebuffed the idea of the termination of Hamas’ rule in the Gaza Strip, and refused to condemn Hamas’ October 7 Al-Aqsa Flood jihad massacre. In fact, Qatar joined Iran to condemn Israel’s occupation as a cause for October 7, on the actual day that Israeli citizens were being savaged.
Documents found in Gaza have also shown a Hamas-Qatar coordination against Trump’s peace plan. And as reported by the Jerusalem Post in April:
Qatari deputy prime minister and defense affairs minister Sa’oud bin Abd Al-Rahman Al Thani this week posted and quickly deleted a Twitter/X post in support of Hamas: “We Are all Hamas… Oh Al-Quds, revolt and commemorate Al-Qassam!”
Rather than such news sparking an urgency in the West to unite against the forces of jihad, the willful blindness continues. Ignoring the threat will not make it go away. It will intensify amid the prevailing apathy.
It has become typical for leftist politicians and media appeasers such as the New York Times et al to put Islamic interests above America’s, not only as it pertains to foreign affairs, but domestically as well. Israel is also expected to appease, and is never given any benefit of the doubt. The New York Times also issued warnings about the fallout from the Israeli attack on Hamas operatives on Qatari soil:
“This is a litmus test,” said Bader Al-Saif, an assistant professor of history at Kuwait University. If Gulf rulers “don’t do anything forceful now, they will only be part of an Israeli orbit of power and an Israel-led regional order.”
The fossil-fuel rich Gulf countries —Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and Bahrain — have become increasingly ambitious in recent years, using their vast wealth to garner influence around the world. Combined, the countries control roughly $4 trillion of assets in their sovereign wealth funds, and several of them have substantial sway over global energy markets.
“Netanyahu himself declared that he will reshape the Middle East,” Sheikh Mohammed said on Tuesday. “Is this a message that he also intends to reshape the Gulf?”
To leftists, every free society in the West must appease Islam and Muslims, presumably to keep the peace. But this approach is precisely what emboldens Islamic supremacists and threatens the very existence of the Jewish state.
In a different take on Israel’s attack in Doha, the New York Post statedthat “the attack had huge value: Hamas’ chiefs thought they had safe refuge in Qatar — far from the fighting and squalor in Gaza. They lived lives of luxury in five-star hotels, reportedly sitting on an $11 billion stash, even as Gaza civilians suffered. They could turn down cease-fire deals with no fear of personal consequences, especially since Qatar is a US ally. Now any who survived must know that fear.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a US Embassy event in Jerusalem:
The days are over when terror leaders will enjoy immunity in a particular place… Our enemies must know one thing — since the creation of Israel, the blood of Jews is not cheap!…the Hamas leaders were meeting in the exact place where they celebrated on October 7, 2023, while Hamas was still carrying out the slaughter inside Israel.
Stealth and violent jihadists combine to deceive, manipulate (including the use of extreme propaganda), cast fear, and finally to dominate and conquer territories one at a time. It’s high time they be stopped.