Qatar loves to play host.  In 2022, they hosted the prestigious FIFA World Cup. Presently and into next year, they will be hosting the AFC Asian Cup, and in 2030, they will host a multi-sport event called the Asian Games. There are plans in the making for Qatar to host the 2036 Olympics. Don’t be surprised if it happens.

But Qatar is not just about hosting sporting events.  Qatar loves to play host to important Hamas leaders like Khalid Mashaal, Ismail Haniyeh, and Moussa Abu Marzuk. These three Hamas billionaires are permanent guests of Qatar. While they enjoy the highlife, their Gaza subordinates pay the price for their October 7th massacre of 1,200 innocent Israelis.

The nation state of Qatar had a very interesting beginning. Qatar came to be back in 1971, little more than 50 years ago. Someone had the foresight to take stake out a peninsula on the Persian Gulf with a sparse population and declare it a country. Of course, you could not have a country if you didn’t have someone to run it. A nicely connected Sunni family like the Al-Thani’s would do. And voila: I give you Qatar!

So why the new nation?  It’s not like there was a Qatar Liberation Organization demanding it. Perhaps someone was thinking there was a need for another Arab Muslim country. You can never have enough oil rich anti-Israel nations at the UN. Or perhaps it was just another opportunity for the rich to get richer. But isn’t it amazing just how easy it can be to form a new nation in the Arab world when everyone cooperates? 

No doubt about it, pint-size Qatar (smaller than Connecticut) is one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Natural gas and crude oil is their secret to prosperity. They are one lucky country.

Qatar also owns the Al-Jazeera Media Network. So besides being filthy rich, Qatar is instrumental in shaping Arab thinking and influencing world opinion. Back in 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, seated before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, explained to us, “Viewership of Al-Jazeera is going up in the United States because it’s real news.” Even Nancy Pelosi joined the Qatar bandwagon. In 2014 she shared, “…we have to confer with the Qataris, who have told me over and over again that Hamas is a humanitarian organization.”

Obviously, “conferring” with Qatar has been going on for quite some time and now we find ourselves conferring once again with Qatar about hostages and the Israeli-Hamas ceasefire. I just don’t get it. Why does everyone think the Qataris are so smart? Is it because they are so over the top rich? Tevye, in his If I Were a Rich Man song, explains to us, “When you’re rich, they think you really know.” But is that good enough for us today in this world? I do not think so.

The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani is a dictator and along with his three wives, the Emir seems to share his bed with Hamas too. Strange bedfellows or birds of a feather?

But I am not writing just about the present Emir, Sheikh Tamim. When it comes to conferring with the Qataris, whoever it may be, we can do better. The Qataris are not our friends. They do not have our back. We have less in common with them than those in Washington would have us believe, especially the Democrats.

Image: Defense Visual Information Distribution Service