TRUMP AND HIS ADVISORS HAVE CONSISTENTLY BACKED KEY HAMAS SPONSOR QATAR AND CONDONED QATAR’S FUNDING OF HAMAS

JARED KUSHNER, TRUMP’S SON-IN-LAW AND LEAD MIDDLE EAST DIPLOMATIC LIAISON, TOOK BILLIONS FROM QATAR DURING AND AFTER TRUMP’S TERM

DON’T BET THAT IN A SECOND TERM TRUMP WOULD SIDE WITH ISRAEL OVER QATAR

OPEN SOURCE RESEARCH MEMO PUBLISHED OCTOBER 23, 2024

QATAR IS A LEADING SPONSOR AND SUPPORTER OF TERRORISM, A CLOSE PARTNER OF THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN, AND A KEY PATRON OF HAMAS SINCE 2012

Qatar is a monarchical autocracy, ruled under Sharia law, in which only about 315,000 Sunni muslim Qataris are citizens and roughly 2.3 million foreign workers (mostly from Bangladesh, Nepal, India, and Pakistan) form a non-citizen migrant labor caste. Due to the nation’s oil reserves, citizens of Qatar have the highest wealth and GDP per capita of any citizen population in the world. Qatar’s extreme wealth derives entirely from its enormous oil resources, including the world’s largest natural gas field, which it owns and controls jointly with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Qatar has been for decades a leading sponsor and safe harbor for several Islamic terrorist groups, infamously including Hamas, and it funds and controls the radically anti-Zionist and antisemitic international Al-Jazeera television network. However since 1996 it has also hosted the U.S. military’s Al Udeid Air Base, which is home to 10,000 U.S. military personnel and the CENTCOM Forward HQ for the Middle East.

Qatar is closely linked with Hamas. The Emir of Qatar in 2012 was the first head of state to visit Gaza after Hamas took control in 2007, where he was photographed with a beaming grin, riding shotgun through the streets of Gaza City, with Ismail Haniyeh at the wheel. During the Emir’s visit he announced a $400 million pledge to back the Hamas “government”. Qatar subsequently served as the host and permanent base for many Hamas leaders, allowing them to live and operate with impunity.

On May 20, 2017 during the Riyadh Summit, Saudi and Emirati leaders held a private dinner with Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon to inform them of their plan to blockade Qatar. In early June 2017 Trump posted a series of tweets supporting and implying credit for the blockade. One now deleted Trump tweet from June 2017 read: “So good to see the Saudi Arabia visit with the King and 50 countries already paying off. They said they would take a hard line on funding... extremism, and all reference was pointing to Qatar. Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism!”

However, at the same time Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (formerly CEO of Exxon…) and Secretary of Defense James Mattis called for the blockade to be withdrawn.

In mid June 2017, Trump approved a $12 billion deal to sell F-15 fighter jets to Qatar.

As Trump’s term progressed, he and his administration increasingly voiced support for Qatar, with Trump praising Qatar’s ostensible efforts to combat terrorism financing and highlighting the military and financial ties between the U.S. and Qatar.

During Trump’s term Qatar accelerated its U.S. investments and lavish “philanthropic” disbursements, which notably included many leading universities as the largest foreign funder of U.S. higher education. At a White House state dinner in July 2019, Trump welcomed the Qatari Emir, saying, “we’ve known each other a long time, we’ve been friends for a long time… it’s been really a great honor to work with my friend”, and “[the Qataris] are investing very heavily in our country…And we very much appreciate it.”

Starting in 2018 and throughout Trump’s term, Qatar publicly funneled $30 million of supplies and cash per month to Hamas, under the explicit knowledge and consent of the Trump administration, with all of the cash flowing through the U.S. banking system.

In December 2019, the same Emir of Qatar (Trump’s long-time “friend”) met in Doha with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh to discuss Hamas’ bid to participate in then-proposed elections for governance of the West Bank.

TRUMP’S SUPPORT FOR QATAR UNDERMINED THE BLOCKADE, RESULTING IN ITS UNCONDITIONAL WITHDRAWAL IN 2021

The blockade was lifted in January 2021, under an agreement brokered by Kuwait and the Trump administration, without any substantive concessions by Qatar, and without fulfillment of any of the 13 demands made of Qatar at the start of the blockade. Jared Kushner attended the signing ceremony at the GCC summit in Saudi Arabia.

MEANWHILE, DURING THE PEAK OF THE QATAR BLOCKADE, QATAR BAILED OUT JARED KUSHNER FROM CERTAIN FINANCIAL DISASTER

In 2007, shortly after Jared Kushner became CEO of his family’s investment firm Kushner Companies, the firm purchased a large Manhattan commercial office building 666 Fifth Ave at the premium price of $1.8 billion. This investment was imperiled following the 2008 financial crisis and thereafter Kushner was repeatedly forced to sell off stakes to other investors in order to avoid default.

In January 2017, Trump appointed his son-in-law Jared Kushner as “Senior Advisor to the President”. Kushner was initially rejected for Top Secret security clearance due to concerns about his ties to “foreign contacts” and business interests, but Trump overruled the rejection. Kushner’s portfolio included acting as the Trump administration’s de facto lead diplomat for the Middle East.

In March 2017, just three months after Jared Kushner officially joined the Trump administration, Kushner Companies pitched Qatari billionaire Hamad Jassim Al-Thani, the country’s former prime minister and relative of the Emir, on a lavish redevelopment investment for 666 Fifth, (together with a China/PRC-controlled company) but Qatar backed out due to concerns over public scrutiny of the obvious conflict of interest. Kushner initially supported the blockade against Qatar a few months later; it was reported that Qatari officials believed this support to be in reaction to the withdrawn investment proposal.

In 2018, Brookfield Property Partners, a private equity fund in which Qatar was the largest outside investor*, entered into a 99-year lease agreement for Kushner’s 666 Fifth Avenue property. The deal provided for the entire 99 year lease to be paid upfront, a highly unusual arrangement that allowed Kushner Companies to restructure all of its debt on the property, effectively bailing out Kushner and saving him and his family from a catastrophic wipeout. (* In 2014 the Qatar Investment Authority invested $1.8 billion in the Brookfield Property Partners fund.)

Jared Kushner started a new firm, Affinity Partners, in 2021, which received $2 billion of its initial $3 billion in capital from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, just months after the end of Trump’s term. The Saudi fund’s board objected to this investment but was personally overruled by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. In 2023 Qatar invested a reported $200 million into Kushner’s firm.

TRUMP HOSTED AND ENDORSED THE EMIR OF QATAR AT MAR-A-LAGO SHORTLY AFTER QATAR’S STATE FUNERAL LIONIZING HAMAS LEADER ISMAIL HANIYEH

The Emir of Qatar sat in the front row, visibly bereft, at the August 2, 2024 funeral for assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh held in Doha’s central mosque, during which Qatari Imam Sheik Muhammad Al-Muraikhi’s sermon praised Haniyeh’s martyrdom, saying “the Palestinian cause is the mother of all causes… Oh Allah, annihilate the enemy of Islam and the Muslims, along with those who support him and stand with him.” Al-Muraikhi has previously preached: “We will treat the Jews as our enemies even if they return Palestine to us, because they are infidels.”

In August 2024, Haniyeh was buried in the same cemetery in Lusail, Qatar where the founder of the Qatari state and the members of the ruling family are buried. Meanwhile, several prominent Qatari journalists glowingly eulogized Haniyeh in state-controlled media, including an article in one of the leading Qatari daily newspapers stating that Haniyeh “was martyred to produce thousands of [others like him]. This is as clear as day, [for] jihad will continue until the Day of Judgement.”

On September 22, 2024 Trump hosted the Emir of Qatar at Mar-a-Lago, saying: “He is someone also who strongly wants peace in the Middle East and all over the world. We had a great relationship during my time in the White House, and it will be even stronger this time around!”

… to date, Donald Trump has made no statement at all regarding Haniyeh’s assassination.

CODA

On October 15, 2024, as Israel’s retaliation to IRGC’s second volley of attacks was pending, with promised collaboration from the United States military, the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Qatar stated on Qatar TV: “Qatar does not accept the launching of any attacks or wars from [the major U.S. military base in Qatar] against countries and nations in the region and beyond.”

On October 18, 2024, the Emir of Qatar’s mother, who is also head of the Qatar Foundation, which dominates education and culture facilities and initiatives in Qatar, eulogized Yahya Sinwar in an English post on X: “The name Yahya means the one who lives. They thought him dead, but he lives on. Like his namesake, Yahya Bin Zakariya [a 10th century Shia Jihadist military leader who conquered parts of Syria], he will live on and they will be gone.” In addition, several Al-Jazeera television anchors eulogized Sinwar as a “hero” and “martyr”.

On October 22, 2024, Qatar Airways announced on X that it had become the first major airline to launch SpaceX Starlink inflight broadband service, along with a clip of a giddy video call between the Qatar Airways CEO and Elon Musk, in which the Qatar Airways CEO says, “looking forward for more collaboration between us” to which Musk replies, “this is the minimum and it only gets better from here.”

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Trump’s return to the presidency would be a four-year game of “Russian roulette” for Israel and the world order.

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