How Qatar supports terrorists and still enjoys vast western influence
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Summary
Qatar is a small country with a population of less than 3 million people, but a GDP that outsizes their population. And it has become central to peace in the Middle East, to push for a Middle East peace plan by President Donald Trump, and yet it also throws its weight around the Western world.
Transcript
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Qatar. It's a small country. It's one of the smallest of the Gulf states, a population of
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less than 3 million people, but a GDP that outsizes their population. And it has become central to
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peace in the Middle East, to push for a Middle East peace plan by President Donald Trump.
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And yet, it also throws its weight around the Western world.
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Hello and welcome to the Full Comment Podcast. My name's Brian Lilly, your host.
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And if you're like me, you don't know as much about Qatar as you'd like to,
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especially at this pivotal moment in time. You've heard that Qatar and Egypt were interlockers with
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the United States in trying to secure a peace deal. You may have also heard that they can be a
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malignant force in the Western world, funding universities to the tunes of tens of millions
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of dollars and, according to some, funding anti-Semitism on campus and other fights that
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undermine the Western way of life. So, what is the reality with Qatar? That is what we are trying
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to break down on the Full Comment Podcast this week. And to do that, well, two people who know a lot
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about the region, but with two very different points of view. Professor Elan Benmaier is a retired
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professor from New York University. He was born in Iraq. He has studied the region extensively,
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writes on the topics of the Middle East extensively, and appears on television, radio, podcasts, and
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elsewhere. On the other side of the issue is Haras Rafiq. Born and raised in the United States to a
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Muslim family, he is someone who is, well, very much of the view that Qatar is not a benign force,
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not a friend. He is a trustee of the UK charity of Muslims against anti-Semitism. He's been a counter-
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extremism and counter-terrorism expert since 2004, working with the UK government, the American
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government, Canadians, and elsewhere. And he is also part of the group that is known as the Institute
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for the Study of Global Anti-Semitism and Policy. We spoke to both gentlemen from their respective
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homes in New York City and in the United Kingdom, and want to bring you this conversation. First,
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my discussion with Professor Benmaier. So, Professor, how did Qatar end up as this linchpin
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in Middle Eastern security right now, in the peace talks? This is a country with some difficult
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relationships with its neighbors, some questionable ties in the past to terrorism, promoting anti-Western
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issues, and now they are the linchpin. How did we arrive at this point?
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Professor Benmaier. Well, this is, you know, go back, you might say, several decades, for
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the matter of fact, you know, Qatar is the mother land of the Jazeera. So, Qatar has been,
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you know, broadcasting itself as a country that has been advancing, so to speak, of free speech.
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And Jazeera has had significant influence over the Arab world for many, many years now. So,
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this is, this is a factor, an important factor. The second thing, Qatar was the home, so to speak,
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of the Hamas leadership throughout the years. That is, Hamas openly supported Hamas financially.
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As a matter of fact, Netanyahu himself was a conduit. He transferred billions, I should say,
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in cash, in suitcases of money from Qatar to the Hamas or Hamas. So, Qatar was a very strong supporter
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of Hamas, and Hamas leadership primarily resided in Qatar. The other thing is Hamas, of course,
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Qatar wealth has played an extremely important role in financing its various projects throughout the
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Middle East. And it has acquired this reputation. But, and the most important thing is, of course,
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it's the house of the largest U.S. military base in the region. And it has been as such. So,
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it is extremely close ally of the United States. And it has held that position for many decades now.
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And that gives it the sort of the not original, become a regional power, you might say, but also
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international has been able to exert significant influence as a result of that because of its
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involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, because of its strong relationship with the United
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States, and because of its ability to put its money, so to speak, where its mouth is by financing any kind
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of project that is deemed to advance its national interest. And in such a place, you know, the Emir of
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Qatar places himself in a very important role, and he continued to adhere to that, to play that role
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for many years now. And the final point I want to make is an attack, attacking Qatar that is trying to
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assassinate Hamas negotiator, you know, a few weeks back. And that also put again Qatar in the spotlight
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again, and made it possible that for President Trump, actually, when Netanyahu was in the White House,
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to apologize to Qatar for the attack. And that gave Qatar another layer of, you know, I might say,
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another level of strength to have presented itself as a major player.
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You mentioned that Hamas is resident in Qatar. How did that happen? Because they weren't always
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there. My understanding is that it goes back to the Obama administration wanting them there to,
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Yeah, well, you know, Hamas, Qatar believed all along in the Palestinian cause. They do not necessarily
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advocate violence per se, but they have believed in the Palestinian cause. And they saw Hamas as a
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movement that, from their perspective, could advance the Palestinian cause. Again, regardless of their own
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calculation. From their perspective, this was a necessary element to do in order to keep the
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Israeli-Palestinian conflict, so to speak, alive and not dormant. And so from there, they saw Hamas as
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a conduit to keep the light, so to speak, albeit they have not advocated or encouraged Hamas to undertake
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necessarily in a consistent violent action against Israel. So they sort of, they played it both ways.
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Because, again, having close relationship with the United States was very important to them.
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On the other hand, they were able also to maintain that kind of relationship with an extremist Palestinian
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group. And I think that put them all along in a very better position than any other Arab
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countries. And they're playing this role they're playing today. Because they can claim to have been
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behind Hamas years back, and now they have been able to gain the influence, significant influence
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over Hamas, to be able now to persuade Hamas to a great extent to go along with the various concessions
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The issue of the payments from Qatar to Hamas has come up frequently. And people who are, well,
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they're beyond strong critics of the Israeli government. They seem to believe things that
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aren't quite true. They will say, Hamas is just an Israeli invention. And look, they funded them through
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Qatar and all of this. I spoke to the gentleman who delivered the first payments to Qatar years ago,
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a general name, a gentleman named Colonel Grishka Jakubowicz. And he said at the time that everyone
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thought this was the right idea, that this would bring about peace. Was everyone just misguided by
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the Qataris, the Israelis, the Americans? Because they all seemed to think it would bring about
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peace and stability. And Hamas obviously had different ideas.
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No, I think precisely the opposite is what actually happened. Netanyahu was very clear,
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and he said it on a number of occasions. We need to support Hamas in order to maintain the cleavage,
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the gap between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. And in so doing, we're going to
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prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. He has said that time and time and again.
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Quoting him, those who want to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state should be
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supporting Hamas. And in so doing, maintaining the competitiveness between the two sides.
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That was really Netanyahu's idea from day one. He sustained that all the time that he has been in power.
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And I can tell you from sources that I'm very familiar with, and I'm first-hand sources. I can say that.
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Israeli intelligence, Israel and Netanyahu himself knew all along for years now.
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The extent of the tunnels that are being built, the extent of the money, how much of that money they've
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been receiving from Qatar was going to procuring weapons, developing new weapons for Hamas.
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Hamas and Netanyahu knew this all along. But from his perspective, maintaining that relationship
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is going to be a factor in preventing the Israeli-Palestinian from getting together, united,
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and to move toward, and to demand the Palestinians. He said that's what he wanted all along. And as a matter of
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fact, throughout these negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, going back to 2008, 2009,
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with Almut and others, Netanyahu always mentioned, if there's a unity government, he will not negotiate
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with the India government because Hamas is part of it. But he will not negotiate with all Palestinians
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because they are not united. That has been his gameplay all along. So to him, this was a
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fact that supporting Hamas directly led to preventing the establishment of the Palestinian state.
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Qatar has also been quite successful in building up their influence in Western countries, the United
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States, in Canada, United Kingdom, elsewhere. A lot of money going towards universities. Has this been an
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attempt by Qatar to extend their influence beyond the Arab world? You mentioned Al Jazeera. And yes,
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they are influential within Western countries with the Arab diaspora, but they don't have the same clout
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that they do in the Middle East and elsewhere. So is this an attempt, all this money to the universities,
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to buy up influence? There's no doubt about it. They have been used the
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significant wealth in order to advance their interest outside Qatar and outside the Arab world in Europe.
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And by financing from making significant contribution to many universities in Europe and elsewhere.
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This is part of their overall plan. And they have always, you know, using the fact that the United
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States has maintained the largest military base in Qatar, that was something that they've always been
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advertising, that they are actually pivotal to Western interest in the Middle East. They are pivotal to
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the Western security in the Middle East. This is something that they've been able to sell and they've been
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Donald Trump clearly had to lean on Benjamin Netanyahu to get him to the place where he is now.
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How much did Qatar have to lean on the leadership of Hamas, be it Sheikh Mohammed or others in the
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Qatari leadership, saying to their Hamas contacts, you need to accept this deal. You need to move
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forward. Because they've been close many times and then walked away. And of course, the countries such
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as Canada, the United Kingdom, France, recognizing a Palestinian state at the United Nations just
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weeks ago could have emboldened them. So, how much was it Qatar leaning on them and saying,
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no, it's time to take the deal that got them to this place?
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BASOLA I don't know very heavily that have been on them. They have been telling them clearly,
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we have supported you for all these years. And this is where we are now. We have found ourselves
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what's up now. You have a historic opportunity to change course, to change direction.
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But Hamas is also saying, okay, we want to play a role. We want to play a role in the
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political process. This is what I'm hearing from Qataris themselves. They want to play a role.
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Hamas amended its charter in 2017, agreeing to the two-state solution at the time.
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Before, they were calling for Hudna for like the CISFA for 20 years. But in 2017,
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they've changed their charter. I think if they are given the opportunity a path now,
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to be a part of the political process, you might find Hamas to be amenable to join the
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movement toward peace. And then again, you have also the Arab state, the Saudi Arabia, who are insisting
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that further normalization of relations with Israel by Saudis and many other Arab countries and other
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Islamists is going to dehinge upon establishing a clear path toward a solution to Israeli Palestinian
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community, two-state solution. Hamas is in favor of that. 100% is in favor of that. The question is,
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will they be given the opportunity? Because to suggest, lay down your arms, and you will have
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absolutely no role to play in the future, that is going to be a problem. That's going to basically
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freeze the whole process, as I see it. So you don't believe the claim that Hamas launched October
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7th to scuttle the normalization of relationships between, relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia,
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because that has been widely reported that they wanted to make sure that didn't happen.
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Absolutely. That is the case. That was part of their strategy, yes.
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Well, of course. You look at any revolutionary movement, historically speaking,
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sooner or later, after decades, after sometimes a century of fighting, they come to the conclusion
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that they have come to a state where they may have to make a choice. How much longer will they
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continue to fight? I think they have succeeded. And honestly, I feel very strongly that
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they have, as I weigh the whole picture today, as far as I'm concerned, Hamas has led to where we
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are today. Hamas's attack, however, disgusting, savagery it was. And the horrific destruction that
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took place in Gaza has changed the dynamic of Israeli-Palestinian company in a fundamental way,
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in a fundamental way. And in my view, the two-state solution today become a more viable option than
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any time before going back 30 or 40 years for that matter. So time, things change. The dynamics
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have changed in a dramatic way because of these events. And Hamas, if there are any people,
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wise among them right now, they have brought this about, and now they can capitalize on it. Doha,
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Qatar is playing a very important role in saying to them, you have made this, you have brought it to
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this point, let's build on it, because you have no way of succeeding militarily against Israel. Israel
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will always be able to crush you, to crush any violent resistance, as it has all along. So you have no
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chance of defeating Israel by violence. That's going to happen. And since now they have reached,
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you got to a point where you can capitalize on what's changed globally in support of the
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Palestinian cause. And from that perspective, Hamas can say they have won. They have won this battle.
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How important is it to have Saudi Arabia and all these other countries from the region
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backing the peace plan? And does that keep both the Israelis and the Palestinians on side?
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The Israelis, because they want that normalization of relations. Palestinians, because, well,
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Qatar and others have been their patrons. And they won't be there if they start fighting again.
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I think Saudi Arabia has played and continues to play an extremely important role,
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not just in and of itself to normalize relations with Israel, but given its status as the leading
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Arab state today, because of its position as the representative of the Sunni Islam. What Saudi Arabia
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does says it matters a great deal at this point. And I think as long as Saudi Arabia continues to insist
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that it will not normalize relations with Israel until there is a clear path towards a solution to the
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Israeli-Palestinian conflict, that's going to be very important. That will continue to put pressure
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on the Israeli government. And I might say, you know, I have to say that I don't really expect that this
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government, the Netanyahu government, as it is composed today, is going to go along with the
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Palestinian statehood. That has to change. So we are far off from talking about it, practically speaking,
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in terms of here we're going to have moving toward two-state solution. There's going to be significant
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change within the Israeli mindset itself how to approach this whole thing. But what happened in
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the last two years has awakened many people, both in Israel and among the Palestinians, that this is a
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dead end. That continuing violence, as I said, continuing war between the two sides has led to
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nowhere. And in fact, today Israeli-Palestinian relations has been worse than it has been since 1948.
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So the both strategy, the strategy of resistance, violent resistance has failed on both sides.
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Israeli use of a brutal power occupation has failed. And the Palestinian resistance, Islamic resistance,
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Jihad, Hamas, has also failed. So this is, I think there is now a crossroad on both sides,
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need to face it. Where do we go from here? Continuing violent resistance, continuing war,
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it is not going to lead to any better result than what happened today.
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For years, Saudi Arabia was in the lead-up to 9-11, turning a blind eye towards groups like Al-Qaeda,
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at times playing footsies with terrorism. That charge has been made against Qatar in recent years.
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Saudi Arabia evolved away from that. How do you see Qatar when it comes to their support
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I think Qatar is not supporting any, really, to my knowledge, any other Islamic resistance
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movement other than Hamas has been all along. Even their relationship with Islamic Jihad was
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extremely limited, extremely limited. Today Qatar wants to play, continue to play a very important
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role. One of the prerequisites that the Qatari Amir sees that they will have to support a peace process
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and no longer support any resistance movement, any violent resistance movement. This is what they are
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doing now. This is the path they have chosen to do because they want to hold on to the position that
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they have been able to acquire to gain now and not allow that to wither. So that's
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their strategy now to continue to play a very important role, but it will have to be excluding
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the support of any other violent resistance movement among the Palestinians.
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A quick break from this discussion, and when we come back, my conversation with Haras Rafiq
00:20:54.040
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Did What? everywhere you get podcasts. Well, you've heard one side of the argument about Qatar,
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that they are a good force, that they are vibrant partners of the United States. That's not the view of
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everyone. And so we wanted to get a different idea. Haras Rafiq is someone who has been studying
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terrorism. He's been studying issues around Qatar for years. He has advised governments in the United
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Kingdom, in Canada, in the United States, government institutions as well, and joins us on the line from
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the UK. Haras, it's great to speak to you again. Your view on Qatar, a malign element, a benign element.
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First of all, Brian, thank you for having me on your show again. It's always a pleasure to be on.
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The question that you asked is actually, the answer is very straightforward. Qatar for the last
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five years plus has been one of the single drivers and supporters and promoters and enablers and funders
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of what we believe and what we call, and actually it's not a name that we've made up,
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Islamist extremism around the world. And when I say Islamist, I'm talking Islamism as opposed to Islam.
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In the same way that we have a difference between social and socialism, social happens to be the
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the way that we interact, and socialism is a distinct political ideology that just happens to be left of
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centre. Islamism is separate to Islam, and it is a distinct political ideology. Islam is a...
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Islamism is a political interpretation of Islam. Is that how you would put it?
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So Islamism, as from the words of the Islamists, let's use their definitions. First of all, Islamism
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is a plausible reading of Islam, one of many, and it's a contemporary reading that comes from two
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places, from the Middle East for the Muslim Brotherhood and from sort of Indian, Southeast
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Asia with the Jamaat Islami. And they say, and they use the word Islamism, Islamiyun in Arabic,
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to differentiate themselves from ordinary Muslims at the time. Two things that they have that are
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very clear, and one is a tactic. The first thing is that it is the desire to actually enforce a
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version of state law derived from the personal code of Sharia on all of the people in a state.
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Secondly is to spread that around the world, and the tactic is to wipe Israel off the map.
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Islam is a religion that's practiced by people in so many different ways around the world,
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often excommunicating each other, I hasten to add. But Islamism is, as far as they're concerned,
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and as far as they've defined, a distinct political ideology. But it is a plausible reading of Islam,
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Yeah, I think that that part, that there are so many different interpretations is lost on people
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in the West, even though there's more than 25,000 different denominations of Christianity,
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Christianity. And we don't bat an eye at that, but perhaps it's not as political,
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at least these days. You're a Muslim, would you be excommunicated by the Islamists?
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I'm going to answer that question by saying I have been excommunicated by the Islamists.
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It's not that I would. Over the years, I've been called a kafir, an apostate, a heretic,
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an Islam... But actually, it's not Muslims that tend to call me an Islamophobe, it's non-Muslims
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that tend to call me an Islamophobe, and those that are actually working as what we call
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part of the red-green alliance, where red represents the regressive left, and green represents Islamist
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theocracies. Yeah, I've been excommunicated many times, but my thing is I'm from the aspects of
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traditional classical Islam, which isn't political Islam, nor is it Islamism.
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So your view is that Qatar is trying to spread this. Is that through funding of universities? Is
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it through Al Jazeera? Is it all of the above? We see the funding of universities in Canada is
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significant. It's even bigger in the United States, though. Is this all part of an attempt to push a
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viewpoint that is at odds with the West, or are they just trying to, you know, as our previous
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guests say, you know, well, they're good partners with the Americans? So there was a time when most,
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if not all, of the Arab states in the Middle East were funding, supporting, promoting, whether it's
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through universities, whether it's through other elements of soft power, the Muslim Brotherhood ideology.
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Something interesting and very important happened a few years ago, where Saudi Arabia, the UAE,
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Bahrain, and other countries have since caught up as well, for their own reasons, I hasten to add,
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decided that Islamism, and particularly Muslim Brotherhood, was a direct threat to their own
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sovereignty and to peace within the region. What they decided to do was actually ban the Muslim
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Brotherhood as a terrorist entity in any of their offshoots and derivatives. Qatar didn't. And there
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was a Gulf blockade of Qatar a few years ago, when they tried to put pressure on Qatar, to try to stop
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enabling and continuing with their support. And the fact that Islamism and the Muslim Brotherhood
0.97
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is very much part of the institution within Qatar. Qatar decided to double down, the blockade didn't work,
00:27:56.920
and they got support from Turkey and from Iran. So they tried a different approach. Right now,
00:28:03.080
in the Middle East, in the Arab countries, the main Arab, the majority Arab, the big ones that we would
0.59
00:28:08.920
consider, putting Kuwait to one side. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Jordan, Egypt, have all banned the
00:28:20.440
Muslim Brotherhood ideology as a terrorist entity. Qatar hasn't. I hasten to add a sidebar. Israel is
0.92
00:28:28.520
also another country that hasn't banned the Muslim Brotherhood, but that's another sort of point that
00:28:34.920
rather than banning them, they actually have members of the Muslim Brotherhood ideology who are
00:28:40.520
representatives within Parliament. And that's the decision they've taken. We can discuss that later
00:28:45.320
if you like. But to answer your question directly, Qatar decided that they want to influence.
00:28:53.960
They're a very small country. They're one of the smallest countries in the region, that they want to
00:28:59.080
have influence within the region, throughout the West. So they decided to actually continue with this
00:29:06.040
funding, supporting in universities, but other aspects as well. The Muslim Brotherhood came up
00:29:13.240
with a strategy in the 1980s, and the document was found in a Swiss counter-terrorism raid. And then
00:29:20.040
another document was found that actually supported that in the US, and was used in the Holy Land Foundation
00:29:25.960
trials a 100-year plan on how they're going to infiltrate and effect change within Western countries,
00:29:35.080
especially North America, and that includes Canada and the US. Qatar has been promoting that and
00:29:42.200
supporting it financially around the world. Canada is one of the main places, the US, of course, in the UK
00:29:49.800
and Europe as well. But they're still doing it, they haven't stopped. And they are really causing, I
00:29:58.840
blame in the modern day times, Qatar, for actually enabling this ideology that is a direct threat to our
0.58
00:30:10.120
liberal secular democracies, more than any other country in the world, through the financing and the direct support
00:30:16.760
that they're giving. Can you speak to me a bit about the Muslim Brotherhood? Because
0.76
00:30:22.520
while I'm familiar with it, I'm sure many listeners are not. And, you know, my read of Canada, as it has
00:30:30.280
stood for the last 20 years that I've been looking at this, is fertile ground for the Muslim Brotherhood.
0.99
00:30:36.360
Absolutely. So the Muslim Brotherhood was, so post the age of the empires, when we had the
0.99
00:30:42.520
Ottoman Empire, we had the British Empire, when that collapsed sort of after World War One and
00:30:48.120
started to decline, we saw that the Middle East was carved up into protectorates, and Britain and
00:30:56.920
France and others. And there was a group of people, at the time led by a guy called Hassan al-Banna,
00:31:03.000
who used to be a school teacher, that wanted to bring back in what they called the glory days of Islam.
00:31:08.760
And they thought, well, we need to become more in line with what they considered to be
00:31:15.640
Islamic values, from their perspective. So the Muslim Brotherhood was born, and then
0.99
00:31:20.360
along the way there were instances where they worked with governments, and they were born in Egypt.
00:31:25.560
They found fertile ground for their ideology outside of Egypt, and they found lots of money.
00:31:31.880
And with that money, they were able to spread this ideology around the world.
00:31:37.000
They've never really wanted an Islamic State in Europe. Their focus has always been to have
1.00
00:31:43.080
it somewhere in the Middle East. Now let's move on to what they were doing, what the strategy has
00:31:47.560
been in the West. The Muslim Brotherhood does not exist as an official entity in Canada, the UK,
00:31:55.240
or the US. Rather, what they did, because of this whole history of sometimes being banned,
00:32:00.440
sometimes working with governments, etc., they used a strategy of getting their people to set
00:32:07.960
up organizations, institutions, whether it's in education, whether it's to speak to government,
00:32:13.640
whether it's academia, whether it's just social care, that were aligned directly to their ideology.
00:32:21.960
And what we've seen over the years is funding from, initially from Saudi Arabia and the UAE and others,
00:32:27.880
but they've cut it and they no longer support it. Now, from Qatar, that has actually created this beast
1.00
00:32:35.240
that actually has a very high level of success in the way that they've been able to penetrate our societies.
00:32:43.400
Are we able to tie in the protest movements that we've seen since October 7th, supporting Hamas,
00:32:55.560
supporting violent terrorist acts, to this funding from Qatar, through Muslim Brotherhood or other
00:33:03.720
organizations, through their funding of Al Jazeera and a media outfit that is still freely
00:33:12.840
available to get in Canada while other media outlets are shut down or blocked? Can we tie all of that back to Qatar?
00:33:20.440
So, we can tie a lot of things to Qatar which are directly related to terrorism in other countries.
00:33:27.560
And there's plenty of sort of news open source out there where Qatar has been accused by its neighbors
00:33:33.480
and even by the US and even by the UK of actually funding terrorist activities, not in Canada.
00:33:41.400
But what we can say about Canada, if we're talking specifically about Canada, what they've been able to do
00:33:47.880
and what they've done is, first of all, is create the dissemination of Islamism and we find ourselves
0.79
00:33:56.040
in a situation that we see with the protest where the entryism has been so great through professors,
00:34:02.440
through their funding. Look, Qatar is funding a lot of universities in Canada. You've got universities
00:34:09.240
like McGill and others and we've, in our report that we did as ISCAP, we've put the facts out on the table.
00:34:17.960
But what they've done is they've created this beast and now we're moving on to what I'm
00:34:22.920
calling what we're calling Islamism beyond Islamist and Islam. And that is where we have non-Muslims,
1.00
00:34:30.600
we have non-Islamists that have come together on common platforms, this hatred of Jews, this hatred of
0.59
00:34:37.400
Israel, especially after post, sorry, post-October the 7th, where the messaging, the demands of these
00:34:45.800
activists, these encampments are directly in line with what the Islamists have been asking for. We've
0.98
00:34:52.680
heard people on these encampments, actually in the list of demands, demanding the release of
00:35:00.280
convicted Islamist terrorists. What's that in the West, in the US and other places?
00:35:05.720
And they're portrayed just as, well, they're hostages, just like the Israeli hostages. No,
00:35:11.560
they killed a lot of people in a terrorist attack.
00:35:13.880
Yeah, look, at the end of the day, we in the West, we in Canada, Canada has its own legal system. And
00:35:23.080
it is separate from government, it's independent, the judiciary is, and the people, or in Canada,
00:35:28.760
in the US or the UK, the people that have actually, they're talking about terrorists,
00:35:32.600
convicted terrorists in the West. They're not even talking about people in Israel. They're talking
00:35:37.720
about Arsia Bibi. This is a person who's al-Qaeda, who's been convicted by going through the Jew
1.00
00:35:43.640
process in the US of killing or enabling and supporting and killing a lot of people.
0.65
00:35:51.320
And these are the demands. And I don't see what that's got to do with the release of hostages
00:35:56.520
in Israel or actually a ceasefire in Gaza. These are demands that you would only expect and hear from
00:36:06.600
Muslims who are Islamists a few years ago. So the funding has enabled this ideology through academia,
0.88
00:36:13.560
through professors, through the grants of actually spreading and becoming almost mainstream in a lot
00:36:21.400
of universities. And I'll give you another example of something. So we did a report on Texas A&M in the US,
00:36:31.240
and they received billions of, and sometimes undocumented money from Qatar, from Qatar proxies.
00:36:38.520
And the proxies happen to be the Qatar Foundation, which is a separate company, but wholly owned by the
00:36:44.040
government. So when some president from a university says, we don't receive any money from the Qatari
00:36:49.320
government. Technically and legally, they're actually correct. They're not lying. But what they
00:36:55.640
actually mean is that, yeah, we've got money from Qatar Foundation, which is a separate entity,
00:37:00.440
which is wholly owned by the Qatari state. So it is actually coming from the government. But Texas A&M
00:37:05.800
was giving billions. And we found online on one of their portals, on Qatar Foundation portals,
00:37:13.080
the actual contract, and there were three problematic areas. One was that Qatar owned all of the IP and all
00:37:21.480
the research that it actually commissioned. And we found that approximately 10% of that research had
00:37:28.600
potential dual purpose applications, including nuclear and other weapons. The second thing was that they had
00:37:36.360
access to all student information. And of course, they owned all of the IP. And we exposed it.
00:37:46.680
They doubled down and said, no, no, no. And then we actually put more data out and give them their
00:37:51.000
credit. The trustee, the governors, the trustees of Texas A&M, one of the most prestigious universities
00:37:57.400
in the US, actually took a decision that based on all of this evidence, that they will pull out of
00:38:03.240
Doha in Education City. So we've exposed what Qatar is doing. It's happening in Canada as well.
00:38:12.840
A lot of it is about ideology, but some of it is actually commissioning and getting the best
00:38:19.400
research done and then owning the IP. It's soft power.
00:38:24.440
Okay, just a quick aside, and then we'll move on. On that defense by the university, that's like saying,
00:38:28.920
well, I didn't go to the whorehouse because they sent someone over to my hotel room.
1.00
00:38:36.920
Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. That's what it is. And that's why a lot of these presidents from,
00:38:43.560
you must have seen all these congressional hearings, where a lot of presidents were asked,
00:38:49.560
are you receiving any money from the country government? And some of them said no. And some
00:38:54.040
of them said, oh, we'll have to get back on you. We don't know. We don't know the answer to that
00:38:57.480
question. And some of them said no. Well, they didn't really technically lie. They didn't go to
00:39:01.960
the whorehouse. They had the whore come to them.
1.00
00:39:05.800
Yeah. Unreal. Now, how should we feel about Qatar being so central to the peace talks? It's left me
0.99
00:39:14.840
uneasy from the beginning. But we were speaking with Professor Ben Meir from NYU, and he was singing the
00:39:26.200
praises of Qatar being involved, and a staunch ally of the United States, and a real player in the
00:39:32.680
region. I have my concerns. Because of the housing of Hamas for so long, because of the soft power that
0.94
00:39:44.360
you've been describing, with them being so vital to the peace process that's going on, does that raise
00:39:51.560
any red flags for you? I mean, I will say this. Sheikh Mohammed, the Prime Minister,
00:39:58.040
appears to have exerted good pressure to land us at a good spot. We'll see how long that lasts.
00:40:07.400
I have a lot of concerns, and I have some hope as well, by the way. It's not all doom and gloom.
00:40:11.960
My initial concerns are based on the following. We have to ask the question, why have Qatar been so
0.99
00:40:23.480
instrumental in being able to mediate this, what we hope is a long-term peace plan? And the reason is
00:40:33.240
that they are not only housing the Muslim Brotherhood, because let's not forget, Hamas said in their
00:40:38.840
charter, sorry, in their founding charter, we are a chapter, we are the Palestinian chapter of the
00:40:44.200
Muslim Brotherhood. So when we talk about Hamas, we can talk about the Muslim Brotherhood, because they
00:40:49.000
said we're part of the Muslim Brotherhood. They said it very clearly. Qatar has been instrumental because
00:40:56.360
they house them, they support them, the Hamas leaders who are billionaires, who clearly
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00:41:04.280
take a commission from the billions of dollars that Qatar has given to Palestinians in Gaza over the
00:41:12.360
year, over the years. They house them, they support them, they fund them. They are the same ideology.
00:41:19.160
My question to Qatar is, and I think I kind of know some of the answers to this,
00:41:24.520
why haven't they been able to do this deal a year ago, or a year and a half ago?
00:41:28.360
Why are they so all of a sudden instrumental in being able to negotiate this deal, when this deal
00:41:38.520
or versions of this deal have actually been sitting on the table for over a year, and it's been rejected
00:41:43.160
by many people? You mentioned that to me earlier, before we were recording. This deal was there,
00:41:49.160
and nobody really talked about it, thought about it, looked at it.
00:41:52.520
Yeah, but the Biden administration didn't want to look at it. At the time, for whatever reason,
00:41:58.920
Bibi Netanyahu said no. I think that, and by the way, this deal, we're all saying that Qatar is
0.71
00:42:08.120
instrumental. Yes, they are. Why the instrumental? Because they brought their buddies to the table,
00:42:12.680
and the people that they fund, the people that listen to them to actually negotiate a deal with Israel,
00:42:18.760
with the US and Egypt and Turkey and other countries being there as well. But let's not
00:42:24.280
forget the other countries in the region as well. This deal is about Saudi Arabia, it's about the UAE,
00:42:31.480
it's about Jordan, it's about Egypt, it's about all of the other countries as well, who've been
00:42:36.760
wanting this deal for a long time. Qatar hasn't been able to persuade, or maybe they haven't even tried,
00:42:43.240
sorry, been able to persuade. Maybe they haven't even tried to persuade Hamas to actually agree to
00:42:51.160
all of these things. And if you look at Netanyahu, from his perspective, I don't think that what Yahya
00:42:58.520
Sinwar and the leaders of Hamas expected to be the result of October the 7th is what they've actually
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00:43:03.800
ended up with. Through the actions of Israel in defending themselves, they've been able to decapitate
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00:43:12.520
Hezbollah. They've taken out the nuclear threat from Iran for now. They've actually dealt with the Houthis,
0.85
00:43:19.480
Iraq, the proxies in Iraq have been quiet. There hasn't been an attack on Israel from Iraq for a long time.
00:43:27.240
So maybe he was waiting to actually clear the ground from some of the other potential strikes.
00:43:35.800
But Qatar really hasn't tried, I believe, to the fullest force over the last two years to get Hamas
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to agree to releasing the hostages. And so one could argue, or one could ask the question,
00:43:51.080
is it partially Qatar's fault that the hostages haven't been released over the last two years,
00:43:57.800
sooner? Then I'll put the blame on another side, the Biden administration.
00:44:04.760
Look, I know this, because some of the work that I do, they weren't really interested either.
00:44:14.760
I can't answer that question exactly. I can only give you my analysis. I think there was some
00:44:20.760
ideological influence within people at the administration that actually were very much in line
00:44:30.040
with the whole narrative of from the river to the sea. That's my analysis. I don't know the exact answer.
00:44:36.280
And I think there was some reluctance. And then there were some demands from Saudi Arabia as well. Because,
00:44:43.880
again, why did I ask myself the question? And I've been working in Saudi Arabia for the last four years
00:44:50.440
as part of some of the work that I do. I asked myself the question on October the 7th,
00:44:54.600
why now? Why has Hamas and PIJ, ordered and supported by Iran, why have they done
0.91
00:45:05.960
what they did now? Why didn't they do it before? And the reality of the situation was that there was a
00:45:11.720
broader deal that Saudi and others were considering with Israel for normalization. And what Saudi wanted
00:45:21.160
was very simple. They wanted from the US an enhanced deal to protect them at that time from Iran,
0.89
00:45:27.880
because they were worried about Iran. Secondly, they wanted supervised nuclear energy. And the third
00:45:34.440
thing, they just wanted a roadmap for some form of Palestinian self-determination. They weren't asking
00:45:41.960
for it right now. Like the peace plan, some form of road plan that if X happens and we can move on to
00:45:48.760
A, the Biden administration just wasn't interested. And I can't answer for sure the reasons why.
00:45:58.520
That's the theory, which is widely accepted, that Hamas launched the attack on October 7th to scupper
00:46:07.960
any attempts at normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the West.
00:46:13.160
And this is my own personal analysis. I actually said it on the day. And evidence that I've seen and
00:46:23.160
sort of the build up to pre-October the 7th that I was partially involved in leads me to that assessment.
00:46:29.720
And for me, it's a very strong theory. Again, you know, the only people that can speak to exactly why
00:46:37.800
they did it are the people that did it. But why didn't Qatar, if they're so influential, which they
00:46:43.400
are with Hamas, their leaders sitting in Doha, why didn't they stop them?
00:46:47.560
I had scribbled down to ask you, are the Qataris ideologically aligned with Hamas? Professor Ben
00:46:56.920
Mir would say no, it sounds like you would say yes. The whole of the Qatari infrastructure, the
00:47:05.000
institutional infrastructure, and that which is manifested as one example of Al Jazeera, if you look
00:47:12.120
at what Al Jazeera is pumping out in Arabic, it's totally different to what they're pumping out in
00:47:17.080
English and the stuff they're pumping out in English is very much in line with the Muslim
1.00
00:47:21.080
Brotherhood Islamist ideology anyway. The Arabic stuff is actually even worse. Institutionally,
1.00
00:47:29.080
and this comes from the top, institutionally, the Muslim Brotherhood ideology is so intertwined
00:47:36.600
within the whole of the Qatari, the whole of Qatar, like it was at one time in Saudi Arabia,
00:47:44.440
I hasten to add, which it isn't now. At this moment in time, that hasn't changed. Yet. I'll say yet.
00:47:54.440
We saw Benjamin Netanyahu apologize to the Qatari government for his airstrike to try and take
00:48:04.440
out Hamas leadership there. But I have to ask, did that airstrike perhaps adjust the thinking
00:48:16.440
Oh, absolutely. But it did more than that, Brian. So, you may recall that after the airstrike,
00:48:24.440
there was an emergency meeting of the Gulf coalition, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar,
00:48:32.760
and Egypt was involved. Pakistan, I think, was there. Turkey, I think, even though they're not Arab,
00:48:38.200
they were there. There was a big movement from some of the countries, including Egypt at the time, to try
00:48:45.720
and get the regional countries to form some form of NATO-type alliance, so that if there's an attack
00:48:52.520
on one, there's an attack on all of them. And Qatar was actually promoting that as well. They thought
00:48:57.880
they could turn up with Egypt, and Egypt would be part of the supplied forces. Turkey would be
00:49:05.160
another one that would supply their forces. The country, one of the countries that said no,
00:49:10.760
was Saudi Arabia. And they went away, and they signed this enhanced deal with Pakistan.
00:49:18.280
So, Saudi Arabia now, in effect, has a nuclear deterrent through Pakistan. So, all of a sudden,
00:49:24.520
Qatar was even more isolated than just the airstrikes. Secondly, if you look at all of the,
00:49:29.960
and I talked about the Texas A&M pullout from Doha City, there has been more of a focus,
00:49:38.040
and ISKAP has been at the forefront of this, on the soft power and their ideological support,
00:49:45.640
financially and otherwise, within the West, that they have been, the strikes has led to a catalyst
00:49:52.600
that has left them very, very isolated. And I think that Qatar were looking for a way out,
00:50:00.040
and the Americans then signed an even further enhanced deal with Qatar, because, yes,
00:50:06.680
they've got the military air force base there. 10,000, I think, American troops are there.
00:50:11.960
But now, it was signed a couple of weeks ago, I think, there was a deal signed where now the US has
00:50:18.840
said that an attack on Qatar, if there's an attack by anybody on Qatar, we will defend. And I believe,
00:50:24.520
as part of that negotiation, Qatar, feeling isolated, knowing that all of a sudden, you know, Israel could
0.67
00:50:32.440
bombers again, if they want to, and try to take out Hamas leaders or others, and the way that they took
00:50:39.400
out a lot of the senior military command within Iran, they found themselves boxed in, in a situation
00:50:48.600
that finally they said to the people that are their housing and their funding and their supporting,
00:50:54.280
you've got to do this deal. But I think we need to go further than this. It won't just stop. Because
00:50:59.880
my concerns are that until Qatar disavows and actually take steps to remove their support within
00:51:10.760
the country and outside of the country of the Muslim Brotherhood ideology, in the same way that Saudi
00:51:15.400
Arabia did, and the UAE did, even after this peace deal, we're going to have more problems in the
00:51:23.960
West, Canada, for example, than we will have within the Middle East.
00:51:29.000
So what we need is Qatar to find their own Mohammed bin Salman, who will say,
00:51:35.480
this is not a good path for us, we need to change.
00:51:38.440
And we need to change, and then implement the changes, because the changes that Mohammed bin,
0.68
00:51:44.920
the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has initiated and implemented within Saudi Arabia
00:51:51.160
have happened quickly. I mean, I first went, there was a time when I couldn't go to Saudi Arabia,
00:51:56.680
it wasn't really safe for me, I criticised, not the, not the, the ruling family, but their support
00:52:03.480
for Wahhabism and their support for Islamism on mainstream media, Sky, CNN, BBC, on many occasions,
00:52:11.000
it wasn't safe. Just during COVID lockdowns, I went, and had meetings with some very, very senior
00:52:19.480
people, and I looked them in the eye, and somebody, I won't say who, said to me, Harris, you've decided
00:52:26.600
to come to Saudi Arabia now and have these discussions with us, you've criticised us heavily in the past,
00:52:32.680
and you haven't been here for 15 years to perform Umrah or Hajj. Why did you accept this invitation now?
00:52:41.000
And I looked this person in straight in the eye, and I said, look, for decades, you have been one of
00:52:44.840
the main causes of the problems that we're facing in the West and around the world. I now want, I was
00:52:50.040
curious, I wanted to ask you directly, are you going to be part of the solution? And this person,
00:52:56.520
without hesitation, looked me straight in the eye and said, yes, we want to be, and yes, we have to be.
00:53:01.000
And I don't recognise, when I went during COVID lockdowns, I'd seen vast changes already. Women
1.00
00:53:07.640
could drive, the religious police, the morality police have been disbanded. Every year, every time
00:53:13.960
I go, and I sometimes go four or five times a year these days, I see something new. But the key thing is,
00:53:21.240
they have not only removed the Muslim Brotherhood ideology, they've also moved away from the
00:53:27.720
fundamentalist Wahhabist theology as well. Qatar needs to do the same. Until Qatar does that,
00:53:35.560
until Qatar disavows this ideology and the Wahhabist theology, there will always remain a problem.
0.71
00:53:41.880
And there will be peace in the region. There has to be peace in the region. Whether this peace plan
00:53:46.600
works or not, there will be peace. I really believe it, because there's an appetite for peace.
00:53:53.240
But this soft power funding of the Islamist ideology, and now Islamism beyond Islamists,
00:54:01.640
that's happening in Canada. And by the way, I think Canada is one of the worst
0.90
00:54:05.240
countries for this soft power. We have the jihadist terrorist attacks here in the UK,
00:54:09.560
but you have this infiltration, this entryism within Canada, far greater than we have in the UK.
00:54:14.600
And I say that as somebody who's been in Canada a lot over the last couple of years.
00:54:18.680
And you and I discussed that about 18 months ago on this podcast.
00:54:21.560
We did. We did. We did. We did. And it hasn't gotten better.
00:54:25.080
It hasn't gotten better. And this funding and this support for this ideology, for these proxies,
00:54:33.000
these aligned organizations, Muslim Brotherhood aligned organizations, who first of all persuaded
00:54:38.520
Muslims who are not Islamist within Canada, that we're the gatekeepers, we're the only ones that are
0.91
00:54:43.480
representing your interests. And secondly, have persuaded schools, they've persuaded governments,
00:54:51.080
they've persuaded the police, they've persuaded a whole bunch of other people,
00:54:54.040
hey, we are the authentic version of Islam. Until Qatar stops this support, continuous support,
00:55:02.120
where the people, Canada, the UK and the US, who are going to continue to have these problems.
00:55:07.800
Because the other side of this problem also, and we're starting to see it here in the UK,
00:55:12.520
is there's going to be a backlash. And the backlash is creating something, people are calling it far
00:55:18.520
right, but it's not far right. This ethno-nationalist, and sometimes Christian ethno-nationalist backlash,
00:55:25.560
so what's been happening more visibly over the last two years with the protests and the encampments,
00:55:30.520
etc. But it's actually been going on quietly for a long time. We're the ones that are going to have the problems,
00:55:37.000
and we need to deal with that. Qatar needs to do their bit, and we need to do our bit.
00:55:41.080
So, I'm hoping that Qatar now will, the pressure will continue, and people won't just say,
1.00
00:55:46.600
oh, Qatar, well done, you know, hurrah, hurrah. You've actually mediated and helped to do something
00:55:52.040
that you actually could have done a year and a half ago, had you really wanted to do.
00:55:56.920
But now that there's been an airstrike, and Saudi's gone their own way, and nobody wants
1.00
00:56:02.120
to set up a military force with you, and etc., etc., and you know, on your doorstep,
00:56:06.920
you've been bombed, and you've been exposed in the West to some extent.
00:56:12.200
They need to be, they need to stop doing that. We need to, they've got to realize that this
00:56:17.640
pressure, this pressure has to continue. They, because if that pressure stops,
00:56:23.880
Haras, we could talk for hours, and that's what I appreciate about you. So,
00:56:29.400
Wise, very insightful. Thank you for your time today.
00:56:32.040
No, my pleasure, and thank you for having me on.
00:56:33.880
There you have it. Two very different viewpoints. They agree on some points, they disagree on others,
00:56:39.480
and I'm sure it would be a fascinating discussion to have them both, but we leave it to you. We leave
00:56:44.440
it to you to decide, to comment, to share this. Thanks for listening, and as always, do what you can to
00:56:50.520
spread the word? Full Comment is a post-media podcast. My name's Brian Lilly, your host.
00:56:55.320
This episode was produced by Andre Proulx, theme music by Bryce Hall. Kevin Libin is the executive
00:57:00.680
producer, and please help us out by posting this to social media, leaving us a rating or review,
00:57:06.600
and hitting the subscribe button. Thanks for listening. As always, I'm Brian Lilly.
00:57:11.160
Here's that clip from Canada did what? I promised you.
0.67
00:57:18.680
In the late 1960s, you have members of the Montreal police who can spend their entire shift rushing from
00:57:25.320
one FLQ bombing to another. Here's how New Year's Eve 1968 played out for Robert Coté, a member of
00:57:33.240
the Montreal police bomb squad, which put him at the forefront of fighting the FLQ during this period.
00:57:39.560
He was supposed to be at home with his wife, who had just miscarried twin daughters, but instead,
00:57:45.080
at 11pm, he's called out to Montreal City Hall to investigate a bomb that had just gone off.
00:57:50.840
He's en route with sirens blaring when he's told, actually, don't bother with the exploded bomb,
00:57:56.280
there's an unexploded bomb on the other side of City Hall you have to defuse.
00:58:01.640
And then, right after snipping the wires on the City Hall bomb, Coté has to speed west,
00:58:07.240
where a third bomb has just exploded outside a federal building.
00:58:12.360
The bombing started in April and May of 1963. That's when the first bombings took place.
00:58:18.760
And the mailbox bombings were the most famous part of the whole thing,
0.58
00:58:23.560
which was basically on the Thursday night and Friday night leading into the Victoria Day weekend
00:58:29.480
in 1963. And initially, they started attacking these symbols of federalism, federal institutions,
00:58:37.800
whether it was the Montreal Post Office or Revenue Canada. But the bombings escalated as time went on
00:58:44.440
in terms of the size of the bombs and the powerfulness of these bombs.
00:58:49.560
If you want to hear the rest of the story, make sure you subscribe to Canada Did What?