Qatar discovers cash can wash away blood
National Post, 4 October 2025
Terror against Israel can be funded if, at the same time, sufficient cash is paid to keep Israel’s allies quiet
It appears to have been a good week for Israel regarding the hostages taken by Hamas two years ago next Tuesday. Judging by the statement issued by Hamas on Friday, the Trump peace proposal may well achieve their return.
It was a usual norm-bending week for President Donald Trump, who incoherently addressed an unprecedented assemblage of his braided, medalled and starred military leadership neither about China nor Russia, but rather on deploying troops domestically against his partisan rivals — “the enemy within.”
Trump speaks about the Democratic administrations of America’s biggest cities in language he would never use for Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin. If, instead of running again for president, Kamala Harris could somehow become mayor of Moscow, Trump would authorize Ukrainian missile strikes on the Russian capital.
It was though, indisputably, a very good week for Qatar, the apple of the president’s foreign policy eye, the Gulf petro states being the relationships ne plus ultra of the Trump family operation. Whether a very good week for Qatar can also be a good week for Israel is part of the extraordinary diplomatic situation that marks the second anniversary of the Hamas massacres of October 7, 2023.
In the intervening two years, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presided over the worst security failure in the history of the state of Israel, he has proceeded to accomplish three things.
First, he has, quite brilliantly, seriously disarmed the tentacles of the Iranian octopus in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and even deep within Iran itself, for which he has enjoyed the support, rhetorical and in action, of major Arab powers.
Second, he has pulverized Gaza to the delight of his governing coalition, parts of which desire to entirely displace its Palestinian population. In the past months, his continuing pulverization of what remains standing in Gaza has alienated nearly the entire planet, including longtime allies Britain, France, Australia and Canada.
Third, he is still in power, which was not to be assumed the morning after his administration was proved spectacularly asleep at the switch on the southern border. He has remained despite large-scale disapproval at home and diplomatic isolation abroad. Neither of those have loosened his vice-like grip on the premiership; next year marks the 30th anniversary of his first grasping it. As long as Netanyahu enjoys the support of the most radical elements of Israeli politics domestically, and the patronage of Trump internationally, he feels secure.
For longtime advocates for Israeli sovereignty, security, peace and prosperity — I count myself one such going back 20 years — that twin reliance, upon repugnant elements at home and an unreliable president overseas, is cause for worry. In their different ways, both can betray Israel’s interests.
Enter Qatar. The Qatari ruling dynasty learned from the House of Saud that funnelling cash to influential Americans was rather good value for money. A few hundred million here or there — petty cash in the Gulf — could achieve more than the most persevering and creative diplomacy.
The recently deceased Dore Gold – former Israeli ambassador to the UN, adviser and friend to Netanyahu — laid out the Saudi strategy in his 2003 book, Hatred’s Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism. The Saudi royal family would support Wahhabi extremism at home, terror promotion abroad and then lavish generous sums to the American political, military, diplomatic and business elite to persuade Washington and Wall Street and Hollywood to look the other way. It worked so well that, after 9/11, the Bush administration went into Afghanistan and Iraq, but Saudi Arabia, where three-quarters of the hijackers were from, got a pass.
Under the new crown prince, Saudi Arabia has changed course, but Qatar has followed the previous lead. It has spent billions to expand its profile abroad, on everything from A-list universities in the United States to Hamas operations in Gaza. Terror against Israel can be funded if, at the same time, sufficient cash is paid to keep Israel’s allies quiet.
The Qataris are nothing if not bold. They bought themselves the 2022 World Cup, hosting the most important sporting event in the world in a climate so unsuitable that the traditional dates had to be changed.
Senior officials in Netanyahu’s prime minister’s office (!) were arrested this year for allegedly being on the payroll of the Qatari government. Qatar was paying officials in the Israeli military and even the Mossad, who were only too happy to trouser the cash.
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