"When the Qatari government [blessed by Washington] allowed the Taliban to open an office in Doha this week that had the Taliban flag flying outside and signs everywhere proclaiming the office to represent the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai took the symbolism as an affront."

"For Karzai and his government, the announcement, the flags and the signs brought the enemy unwanted legitimacy. Instead of being treated as insurgents or terrorists, the Taliban got the symbols of statehood."

"Just a week earlier, Karzai had been in Doha speaking at the Brookings Institution’s annual U.S.-Islamic World Forum, clearly warning the Americans and the Qataris not to give the Taliban these symbolic victories."

Brookings Institute, June 20, 2013

Taliban security personnel stand guard as a burqa-clad woman passes by a market. AFP/Getty

 

"The terrorist [Hamas]organization’s leadership has been residing in Qatar for over a decade. It has enjoyed a life of luxury and privilege while there."

"Visiting Turkey, Lebanon, Iran, and other countries, those top Hamas officials have been able to fly around the Middle East. They felt safe and secure, even when they cheered the October 7 massacre on, watching Israelis being slaughtered."

"They watched as the Bibas family was carted off to Gaza; they celebrated as they viewed videos of the massacre of young people at the Nova music festival."

Seth J. Frantzman, Jerusalem Post  

Hamas official Khalil Al-Hayya sits at a mourning house for assassinated Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Doha, Qatar, August 2, 2024. (photo credit: REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa)

 

A Muslim country founded in 1971, Qatar is a monarchy ruled by Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who ascended to the throne in 2013 after his father abdicated his position. Qatar drew attention from around the world when it became an economic success through the discovery of natural gas fields. 

• Qatar has a critical relationship with the United States
• Qatar finances terrorism around the world
• Qatar is also the deal broker in the Middle East

 Qatar maintains a relationship with terrorists, demonstrated by a permissive legal jurisdiction that allows terror financiers to operate in the state and the close connections Qatar has historically held with such illicit channeling of funds. Aside from financing Hamas, Qatar’s alleged support of regional terrorist networks, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, has long been problematic. In 2003, Congress was alerted to several charities in Qatar supporting al-Qaeda. Since then, Qatar has been accused of not only providing refuge to terrorism financiers but also of directly funding terrorist groups.

Mid East Journal  

 

 

Interesting, is it not? Qatar elevating the Taliban -- long before it helped engineer an escape route for the United States out of the quagmire of Afghanistan, enabling the Taliban to return as the repressive regime that tormented its people with its totalitarian Islamist rule in 2021 -- as a 'state-in-waiting'. Much as it and the United Nations and indeed the Western world has been fairly unanimous in elevating 'Palestine' to the status of a state-in-waiting with the recognition of its nascent status, despite the Palestinian leadership refusing to recognize the right of Israel's existence as a Jewish state.

 

Spain, Ireland, France, the United Kingdom and Canada, all anxious to demonstrate their progressive credentials, condemning Israel for its assaults on Hamas in Gaza where the full-scale conflict initiated by the Palestinian terrorist gangs of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Fatah, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and ordinary Palestinian civilians flooding over the border from Gaza into southern Israel to launch a frenzy of mass rape, mutilation, murder and bloodshed on a genocidal scale, followed by abductions of children, families, women, foreign farm workers and IDF sentries into Gaza was answered as any country would, by a drive to destroy the terrorists' leadership, weapons caches and endless tunnels.

 

Qatar -- the backbone of the Muslim Brotherhood, financial saviour of Hamas, whose vast energy resources translate as wealth enabling it to buy an invested presence in the West, disarming suspicions of Islamists as threats to Western civilization -- has presented itself as a trusted interlocutor between democratic nations and the totalitarianism of Islamist jihad. It is as though an evil spell has been cast on those nations of the West whose leaders have allowed themselves to be mesmerized by wealth and assurances of innocently compatible relations.

 

Protesters marched over Westminster Bridge towards Whitehall   Getty Images

 

Canada's current Liberal prime minister, who has shunned and discarded Canada's traditional recognition of Israel as a democratic ally playing follow-the-leader with Britain, France and Australia, casts Israel and its Prime Minister as the villain in an existential battle against the forces of violent terrorism. To Mark Carney, as with Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Anthony Albanese, the Palestinians 'deserve' to have a state of their own, alongside that of Israel. Despite that the Palestinian leadership has continually refused all offers of negotiation between it and Israel to that end.

 

While a massive resurgence of antisemitism has wrought havoc throughout the West with the most recent infiltration of Muslim immigrants, refugees and migrants in organized marches seeking to delegitimize Israel, accusing it of genocide against the Palestinians, threatening the Jewish diaspora that has lived for a millennia throughout Europe, creating chaos in the countries that have amassed a sizeable Muslim presence, few governments have taken steps to protect their Jewish communities, much less put a stop to events of public displays of hatred and threats against their minority Jews.

 

Canada being a case in point, where for over two years, rampant antisemitism has been on display in all cities of the nation, with municipalities, provinces and the federal government sitting back unresponsive to their duty enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guaranteeing respect, security and freedoms to all citizens without exception. The example led by the federal Liberal party has been echoed down the chain of public policy; denounce antisemitism, while linking it to the crime of Islamophobia.

 

Prime Minister Mark Carney meets with President of China Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China on Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

 

In prime minister Carney's search to replace Canada's traditional trading partner under the stress of Donald Trump's egregious tariff wars imposed upon allies and enemies alike, he has taken himself to Beijing -- a repressive regime whose own global trade policies are rapacious and politically and socially abusive, to soften the enmity between Canada and China that has resulted when the Chinese Communist Party's penchant for bullying, stealth capture of government and private enterprise security and trade secrets have become too bitter to ignore -- to end up obsequiously grovelling to re-open favourable trade corridors for Canadian raw products.

 

Mr. Carney's zest for prostrating himself before human-rights-abusing states, those whose none-too-secretive advances meant to impede or outright destroy Western values, social cohesion, security and future prospects for peace and intellectual and economic advancement, has taken him further, to that most obvious of civilizational-destroying places, Qatar. Any self-respecting leader of any Western nation has but to look at their own nation's intelligence security reports' descriptions of Qatar to fully comprehend what it represents.

 

But that hasn't deterred Mr. Carney from making his mid-January trip to Doha, to appeal to its leader the emir, for a strong economic link, since they have so much to share: scientific advances, technology, agricultural best practises -- on Canada's part, investments in Canadian natural resources and production facilities presumably -- on Qatar's part. The property management colossus that Mr. Carney previously was associated with as its vice-chairman has inked a $20-billion AI investment scheme, paving the way for Canada's federal government to launch a bilateral agreement with Qatar.

 

Prime Minister Mark Carney, left, is greeted by Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, centre, as he arrives in Doha on Jan. 18. Photo by Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

 

This is Canada -- bereft of confidence in itself as a decent, human-rights-supporting, modern nation that takes pride in its traditional principles -- in allying itself with other states sharing the same values. Integrity of purpose, pride in heritage, history and culture and the decency of the social contract have gone by the wayside in favour of catering to the very countries whose aspirations are the destruction of Canada as a beacon of freedom and equality, upholding global peace and security, offering friendship to those who deserve it, and reserved distance from those who do not.