Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has attempted to justify the Israeli bombing of Qatar by pointing to the country’s previous funding of Hamas, despite the fact that he facilitated and encouraged the payments.
“Qatar is connected to Hamas, it bolsters Hamas, it harbors Hamas, it funds Hamas… It has strong levers (that it could pull), but it chose not to,” Netanyahu said on Tuesday, according to AFP. “Therefore our action was entirely justified.”
In the wake of the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, Netanyahu came under harsh criticism by Israeli media for his previous policy of propping up Hamas, which was done to divide Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza to prevent a Palestinian state. The policy involved facilitating cash payments to Hamas from Qatar.
According to a 2019 report from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Qatar gave $1.1 billion to Hamas in Gaza from 2012 to 2018 with the approval of the Israeli government, which was led by Netanyahu at the time. The report said that approximately 44% of the funds provided by Qatar during this period were invested in infrastructure, about 40% was allocated to education and healthcare, and the remainder was used to support Hamas and other groups in Gaza.
In 2020, Avigdor Liberman, an Israeli opposition leader, said that then-Mossad chief Yossi Cohen traveled to Qatar and “begged” for the country to continue providing funds to Hamas. “On Wednesday two weeks ago the head of Mossad… and the head of [IDF] Southern Command visit Qatar on an errand from Netanyahu, and they simply beg the Qataris to keep sending money to Hamas after March 30. The Qataris have said they will stop sending money on March 30,” Liberman said.
“Both Egypt and Qatar are angry with Hamas and planned to cut ties with them. Suddenly Netanyahu appears as the defender of Hamas, as though it was an environmental organization. This is a policy of submission to terror,” Liberman added.
Netanyahu has also cited the fact that Qatar hosts a Hamas office to justify the bombing of Doha. But, according to Qatari officials, the Hamas office opened in Qatar in 2012 at the request of the US, which sought a diplomatic line to the Palestinian group.
