Despite Unwavering Support for Hamas, Qatar Seeking Improved Ties With ‘Jewish Community Worldwide’

The Gulf state of Qatar — long-shunned by the pro-Israel community in the US for its overt financial and political backing of the Palestinian terrorist group, Hamas — has announced a new public relations initiative to win hearts and minds among Jews in the US and abroad.

The Qatari effort is being represented by Nick Muzin, a former deputy chief of staff to Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and a familiar figure in pro-Israel circles. In a statement issued on Tuesday, Muzin said he believed that the Qataris were “sincere” in their desire to improve relations with “the US and the Jewish community worldwide.”

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A particularly damning account of Qatar’s relationship with Hamas and other Islamist terror groups was presented to the House Foreign Affairs Committee at the end of July by Jonathan Schanzer, an expert on terrorism at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) think tank in Washington, DC.

“Our critique of Qatari foreign policy has been consistent,” Schanzer said. “We have pointed to Qatari support for Hamas, the Taliban, jihadists in Syria, jihadists in Libya and the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Currently the terror organization’s most important regional backer, Qatar has pledged at least $1.4 billion to Hamas-ruled Gaza since the 2014 war with Israel. A significant portion of Qatar’s funding has been used by Hamas to boost its military infrastructure, including the reconstruction of underground tunnels to launch terrorist attacks inside Israel.

In his testimony, Schanzer said the terrorist group’s “operatives work out of Qatar with impunity, where they fundraise and even plan terrorist attacks.” In one of several examples of the connections between Hamas terrorists and the Qatari authorities cited before the Foreign Affairs Committee, Schanzer noted the case of Husam Badran, a Hamas terrorist “responsible for taking dozens of Israeli lives.”

“[Badran] has been living in Qatar since 2011 after being released from Israeli prison,” Schanzer testified. “According to an Israeli Defense Forces website, Badran directed from Doha a 2013 Hamas plot to kidnap Israeli soldiers. He also was responsible for directing the activities and recruitment for a Hamas headquarters in the West Bank that was broken up in 2015, and for providing that network with hundreds of thousands of dollars from his perch in Qatar. He still appears to be residing in Qatar today.”

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