Hamas Chief Holds Press Conference At Four Seasons Hotel

The Four Seasons hotel chain has come under fire for hosting a press conference this week in Doha, Qatar, by a top Hamas official who called for armed resistance “in all its forms” against Israel, according to a copy of the invitation for the event and video of the press conference. 

Khaled Meshaal, a senior Hamas leader who is designated by the United States as a terrorist, rallied against Israel during remarks at the Four Seasons in Doha, raising questions about whether the prominent hotel chain could be in violation of U.S. laws barring material support to terrorist groups.

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“First of all it is remarkable to me that the U.S. continues to consider Qatar an ally when Hamas operates openly on Qatari soil,” said Jonathan Schanzer, a former terrorism finance analyst at the Department of the Treasury.

“The announcement of this press conference was brazen. The spokesman of Hamas seemed to have really no qualms about sharing the location of this press conference of a terrorist organization on social media,” said Schanzer, the vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“He was blasting it far and wide,” Schanzer said. “We’re talking about a major hotel chain that is now providing material support to a terrorist organization, according to the letter of American law.”

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“Qatar plays host to leaders of a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, but under current U.S. law it is not a designated State Sponsor of Terrorism,” said David Weinberg, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who researches Gulf State monarchs. “Given that Israeli security forces have identified three separate Hamas officials based out of Qatar by name as directing terror cells in the West Bank, U.S. policy needs to keep pace with worrying realities overseas.”

“Perhaps the SST architecture needs to be updated by Congress so that U.S. allies hosting operatives of terrorist groups are subject to new penalties,” he said.

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