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OPINION:
Weeks after Israel targeted Hamas leaders meeting in Qatar, mainstream media remain incensed.
In a news headline that reads like an editorial, The New York Times questioned Israel’s “brazen attack” in Doha. The Economist used the word “catastrophic.” Others parroted the Qatari talking point that Israel “killed any hope” of a hostage release.
Liberal media’s hand-wringing over a targeted cross-border attack in Doha is a sorry sight.
In 2011, President Obama sent SEAL Team 6 into Pakistan to kill or capture Osama bin Laden. In 1980, President Carter authorized sending the Delta Force into Iran. His Operation Eagle Claw aborted, but the military had shoot-to-kill orders to rescue hostages in Tehran. Any media outrage was hard to find.
Historical precedent and common sense justify Israel’s targeting of Hamas leaders wherever they can be found. Qatar’s government has hosted Hamas with immunity for more than a decade. However, supporting those guilty of horrific war crimes guarantees neither the criminal nor the sponsor inviolable safety. The media may call fault for crossing a line, but that works only in tennis and volleyball.
If you can’t fathom Israel’s intense hatred and the targeting of Hamas, recall the beheadings and bodies burned alive on Oct. 7, 2023. (Yes, there are pictures.) We lost nearly 3,000 lives on 9/11 in New York. By proportion, the roughly 1,200 innocent people killed by Hamas equals 40,000 murdered Americans. Imagine the equivalent of 8,000 American citizens kidnapped one night and taken to Mexico. Imagine our reaction to those crimes. Remember the raping, sodomizing and starving that continued long after the Oct. 7 attack. Or recall Palestinians dancing in the streets after the attack. Americans may have forgotten those pictures from the Gaza Strip, but they are still fresh for Israelis.
Unknown to most is that Qatar has spent tens of millions of dollars to whitewash its image while enabling this terrorist group. There is a long list of U.S. firms on the take for the Doha government, playing the double game of mediator and enabler. Russian Gen. Grigory Potemkin would be impressed by the deception. The long list of those law and public relations firms flacking for Qatar can be found at FARA.gov or OpenSecrets.org, which revealed millions of dollars in Qatari spending last year alone.
It was also Qatar that, in 1996, launched Al Jazeera, the news platform that routinely promotes radical Islamist insurgents and terrorist groups. Remember: The same Qatari-funded Al Jazeera went out of its way to showcase dead American and British soldiers after the 9/11 attacks.
Hamas is the Oct. 7, 2023, villain in this long-running Middle East struggle, but Qatar isn’t far behind. Earlier this month, the Qatar government convened a historic session with other Arab states to consider potential punishments for Israel. The representatives showed up for photo ops while considering a variety of diplomatic and economic threats. However, there was no appetite for any real action. The failure to reach consensus highlights how little sympathy is available for Hamas and the disaster it has wrought for the people of Gaza.
Today, the war with Hamas continues in the search for the living captives and the remains of those who have been murdered. Not until the terrorists release those hostages should anyone be surprised at the mounting collateral damage Hamas owns in Gaza two years later.
• Rick Berman is president of RBB Strategies.
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