W wywiadzie z 26 marca 2019 r. dla amerykańskiej witryny internetowej Al-Monitor, Lowlah Al-Chater, rzeczniczka katarskiego ministerstwa spraw zagranicznych, zaprzeczyła twierdzeniom, jakoby Katar wspierał Bractwo Muzułmańskie (BM) i Hamas. Powiedziała, że kontakty Kataru z Hamasem zaczęły się dopiero po tym, jak administracja byłego prezydenta USA George’a W. Busha poprosiła go o pośredniczenie między Hamasem a Autonomią Palestyńską, i że obecna administracja USA także nie ma zastrzeżeń do tych związków, a w rzeczywistości aprobuje role Kataru w udzielaniu pomocy Gazie. W sprawie BM Al-Chater powiedziała, że ”Stany Zjednoczone nie uważają Bractwa Muzułmańskiego za organizację terrorystyczną [i] nie robi tego Unia Europejska. I takie jest stanowisko Kataru, podobnie jak wszystkich krajów arabskich z wyjątkiem Arabii Saudyjskiej, Zjednoczonych Emiratów Arabskich i Egiptu”. Dodała, że mimo tego „istnieje olbrzymie spektrum między nieuważaniem [Bractwa Muzułmańskiego] za organizację terrorystyczną, a wspieraniem go… My zdecydowanie nie wspieramy Bractwa Muzułmańskiego… Nie antagonizujemy ich, ale ich nie wspieramy”[1].
W reakcji na wypowiedzi Al-Chater w tym wywiadzie saudyjski dziennikarz, 'Abdallah bin Bjad Al-’Otaibi napisał w gazecie Zjednoczonych Emiratów Arabskich, „Al-Ittihad”, że jej twierdzenia nie mają żadnego związku z rzeczywistością. Związki Kataru z organizacjami politycznego islamu, takimi jak BM – napisał – jak również z organizacjami terrorystycznymi, takimi jak Al-Kaida, ISIS i Dżabhat Al-Nursa, są bliskie i długoletnie, i przy rozmaitych okazjach Katar wypłacał tym organizacjom miliony dolarów. Al-’Otaibi napisał także o wsparciu rewolucji Wiosny Arabskiej przez Katar, podczas której, jak powiedział, Katar dostarczał funduszy, broni i personelu militarnego organizacjom politycznego islamu. Zakończył, mówiąc, że jak długo Katar utrzymuje te więzi i nie zmienia swojej polityki, pozostanie słaby i izolowany.
Poniżej podajemy fragmenty jego artykułu[2].
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Lowlah Al-Khater (image: Al-Quds Al-Arabi, London)
„In the 20 years since the coup carried out by [the former Qatari emir], Hamad bin Khalifa, against his father [Khalifa bin Hamad Aal Al-Thani] in the mid-1990s,[3] Qatar has earned many apt epithets, including 'Qatar of the Conspiracies,’ 'Treasonous Qatar,’ and 'Contradictory Qatar,’ and, following the boycott [imposed on it in June 2017] by four Arab countries [Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain], also 'Qatar of the Strategic Obstinacy,’ 'Qatar the Sanctuary State,’ and many other [epithets].[4]
„[During her visit to] Washington, Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Lolwah Al-Khater made a statement that contravened all of Qatar’s policies, its strategic inclination towards the MB and all [other] political Islam organizations and their terror militias, and the support it extends to various organizations and currents [of this sort] on the political, economic, media and cultural levels and on every other conceivable level. Describing Qatar’s position on the MB, she said, 'we neither oppose them nor support them,’ and justified this with obsolete arguments whose shameful [falsity] was exposed years ago, for Qatar’s ties with these organizations are as clear as day. In fact, Qatar has gone far beyond this, and has supported Al-Qaeda, ISIS and Iran’s terror militias in various ways. It especially [supported them] financially, [giving them] billions of dollars in various proven and documented incidents, mainly by [paying] ransom – whether to Jabhat Al-Nusra in Syria in the incident of the nuns of Ma’aloula,[5] or to Shi’ite militias in Iraq, in the well-known incident of the hunters.[6]
„[Al-Khater’s] statements may be a trial balloon ahead of [Qatar’s] succumbing to the demands of the boycott countries and renouncing the MB and all the terror organizations, and perhaps it is merely a statement meant to throw sand in [everyone’s] eyes – especially since she spoke in Washington, the capital of U.S. decision making, where President Trump is adopting a firm policy towards Iran and its allies in the region. He is also planning to reassess his treatment of the MB, in light of a new inclination that is emerging in several European states, to thoroughly examine this organization and the roles it is playing in those countries.
„Qatar’s ties with the political Islam organizations are inextricable. They date back to the late 1950s and early 1990s [sic, probably meant 'early 1960s’], when [prominent Egyptian] MB members Yousuf Al-Qaradawi and 'Abd Al-Badi’ Al-Saqer arrived [in Qatar], and gained momentum and impact with great speed after the 1995 coup [in Qatar], following which the Qatari leadership became hostile towards all its brethren [in the Arab states] and [started] spreading chaos within them and supporting fundamentalism and terror.
„These ties reached their peak during the so-called Arab Spring, which was blatantly the spring of fundamentalism and terror. Qatar supported it by every means at its disposal, as part of its firm alliance with the terror organizations that formed over 15 years ago. Qatari assistance was extended especially to these dangerous and organized [terror] groups in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and other countries where it was possible to supply these groups not just with money but also with weapons of every kind. [This was done] with the direct involvement of Qatari officers and military personnel, who managed some of these diverse operations, [for they] planned to destroy the Arab peoples, and succeeded in several countries, where Qatar’s terrorists continue to sow ruin and destruction.
„Following the boycott imposed by the four Arab countries… on Doha, the latter was forced, due to the tight monitoring of its actions, to curb its urge to [support] these organizations, for it failed in most of the countries [where they operated]: Tunisia recovered following a difficult period, Egypt recovered [thanks to] the strength of its people and army, Yemen and its people will come back with a vengeance, for the war there continues and Qatar’s allies are losing… and Libya is [also] about to liberate itself from the Qatar-supported terrorists.
„In sum, the decision-maker in Qatar is in crisis, for his cards, his failures and his plans have been exposed. As long as Qatar refrains from undertaking a genuine reassessment [of its policies] and performing a kind of coup, it will remain isolated and weak.”
[1] Al-monitor.com, March 26, 2019.
[2] Al-Ittihad (UAE), March 31, 2019.
[3] Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa, the father of the present Emir, deposed his own father in a bloodless coup in 1995.
[4] On the crisis between Qatar and the Gulf countries, see MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis No. 1315, Uproar In The Gulf Following Alleged Statements By Qatari Emir Condemning Gulf States, Praising Iran, Hizbullah, Muslim Brotherhood And Hamas, May 25, 2017.
[5] The reference is to a group of Greek Orthodox nuns from a monastery in Ma’aloula, north of Damascus, who were abducted in December 2013 by Jabhat Al-Nusra and released three months later. According to some reports, Qatar, which was involved in mediating their release, paid the organization 16 million dollars. See Raialyoum.com, March 10, 2014; aljazeera.net, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), March 11, 2014.
[6] This refers to an incident in which Qatar reportedly paid a billion dollars to ransom 28 members of Qatar’s ruling family who had been abducted by terror groups in Iraq in 2015 while on a hunting trip. See bbc.com/Arabic, July 17, 2018, mobtada.com, March 30, 2019.
