OPINION:
A disturbing thought experiment: Imagine your children have been kidnapped and are being tortured in a dungeon.
Your phone rings: “Hi, I just wanted to let you know about the leaders of the gang that abducted your kids. Well, it happens that I’ve hosted them in my guest house for years. Perhaps I can work out a deal for you?”
Would you think: “How nice! What a good friend!” I doubt it.
What I’ve described parallels what has been going on between Israel and Qatar since Oct. 7, 2023, when Israel was invaded by Hamas terrorists who massacred roughly 1,200 men, women and children and dragged about 250 more back to the Gaza Strip, where maybe 20 still survive in agonizing captivity.
Qatar’s rulers have been funding Hamas for nearly two decades and formally hosting leaders since 2012. Nevertheless, they claim they are honest brokers mediating between warring parties.
Israel’s war aim is to bring the hostages home and decisively defeat Hamas.
Hamas’ initial war aim was openly genocidal: to wipe Israel off the face of the earth with assistance from the jihadi regime in Tehran and its “ring of fire”: Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Assad regime in Syria, Shiite militias in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen, and various terrorist groups in the West Bank.
When this well-laid plan went awry, Hamas’ goal became to keep the casualty count rising on both sides until Israel agreed to the restoration of Hamas rule over Gaza, where it could plan further assaults against the Jewish state.
In pursuit of that goal, Hamas has been using Gaza civilians as human shields to protect their fighters, confident that Israelis would be blamed for civilian deaths by what has become an international coalition of Islamists, left and right Jew haters, and spineless appeasers.
Thought experiment No. 2: If Hamas had said: “We’re not surrendering. Because we care about the Gazans we’ve ruled since 2007, we will release all the hostages we seized in exchange for an immediate and indefinite ceasefire.”
That wouldn’t be a fair deal. Hamas doesn’t deserve to be rewarded for the devastation it has brought upon Gaza residents and Israelis, but do you think Israelis would decline such an offer?
Lacking such options, the Israel Defense Forces have eliminated the top Hamas leaders in Gaza. The top Hamas leaders that the Qataris are harboring, however, regarded themselves as untouchable diplomats in an Arab Switzerland.
Weeks ago, it became apparent that the talks were going nowhere. Morgan Ortagus, deputy U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, succinctly articulated why: “Israel has accepted proposed terms that would end the war, but Hamas continues to reject them.”
So, it should have come as no surprise that Israel’s leaders decided to treat the Hamas bigwigs in Qatar as the terrorist masters they are, rather than the earnest negotiators they pretended to be.
I’m not arguing that it was strategically smart for Israel to fire missiles at Hamas headquarters in the Qatari capital of Doha earlier this month. Such decisions are way above my pay grade.
I am arguing that harboring terrorists violates fundamental international law.
Based on that law, Israel has the same right to target Hamas leaders wherever they are that the U.S. had when it targeted Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Syria, Qassem Soleimani in Iraq, Ayman al-Zawahri in Afghanistan, and other terrorists in other countries.
Israeli leaders also may have calculated, rightly or wrongly, that if they eliminated the Hamasniks dining in five-star restaurants in Doha, the Hamasniks chowing down on stolen food in the tunnels under Gaza City might demonstrate increased flexibility.
It now appears that the Israeli attack was unsuccessful, perhaps because Hamas was warned, perhaps because the highly surgical strike homed in on phones that were not in the same room as the Hamas leaders.
So, thought experiment No. 3: Imagine that those Hamas leaders, reflecting on how close they came to martyrdom, were to agree to free the hostages in exchange for a guarantee that they would be removed from Israel’s “terminal list.” You think Israel’s leaders wouldn’t take that deal?
I need to say a few more words about Qatar, a country on the northeastern coast of Arabia. Its fewer than 350,000 citizens are superrich because one of the largest natural gas fields in the world lies off their shores. Qatar shares this natural resource with Iran’s rulers.
The Qataris are aligned with and bankroll the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is the Gaza branch. The Qataris have supported other jihadi terrorist groups over the years as well.
At the same time, Qatar has been spending billions of dollars insinuating Islamism into America’s educational system, spreading lucre among Washington influentials and disinforming the “international community,” not least via Al Jazeera, their international propaganda conglomerate.
Thought experiment No. 4: Imagine if, on Oct. 8, 2023, President Biden had said to Qatar’s dynastic autocrat, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani:
“Nineteen months ago, I designated Qatar a major non-NATO ally.
“I therefore expected you to prevent Hamas from doing the kind of terrible things it’s done. You failed me.
“So, now you must instruct the terrorists you’re harboring to order the release of the American hostages — in fact, all the hostages. If they refuse, you will prosecute them or extradite them to a country that will hold them accountable for their crimes.”
Had that scenario unfolded, do you not think that Gaza residents and Israelis alike would have been spared enormous bloodshed and pain?
OK, final thought experiment: If President Trump made the same demands of Qatar’s ruler tomorrow, what do you imagine would be the result?
• Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a columnist for The Washington Times and host of the “Foreign Podicy” podcast.
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