Hamas Celebrates Qatar’s New UN Gig, Media MIA

On Oct. 17, 2017, it was announced that Qatar would be appointed to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). In a largely underreported move, Hamas, the U.S.-designated terrorist group that rules the Gaza Strip, seemed pleased with the announcement.

Hamas’s official Twitter account said that “Qatar is a member in U.N. Human Rights Council after getting 155 votes.” It might seem odd that a terror group would take the time to celebrate a country’s appointment to a UN body ostensibly concerned with human rights.

But Qatar champions Hamas, whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel, the genocide of Jews, and which hides behind human shields while launching missiles at the Jewish state.

Jonathan Schanzer, a former terror analyst for the U.S. Treasury Department, highlighted Hamas’s celebratory tweet. Schanzer, who is now the Vice President at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a Washington D.C.-based think tank, has noted Qatar’s support for terrorism before.

In an April 20, 2017 New York Post Op-Ed (“Time for the U.S. to stop Qatar’s support for terror”), Schanzer detailed how Hamas “enjoys safe haven in Qatar and also raises plenty of cash.” Noting that top Hamas official Khaled Meshal has “long operated out of Doha,” the former Treasury official also pointed out that:

“Hamas military official Saleh Arouri — suspected of masterminding the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens, sparking the 2014 war between Hamas and Israel — is now reportedly in Qatar after being booted from Turkey.”

Qatar’s support for terrorism has extended to hosting members of the Taliban and a seeming unwillingness to go after terror financiers. In 2016, the U.S. Treasury Department’s top terrorism-finance, Adam Szubin, said that Doha had demonstrated “a lack of political will…to effectively enforce their combating terrorist financing laws.”

Qatar’s support for Iran—which the U.S. State Department has listed as the top state sponsor of terrorism—has caused a publicized fissure with its fellow Gulf Arab countries who view the Islamic Republic as exporting instability (see, for example “As Persian Gulf Crisis Persists, Alarm in Washington Deepens,” Sept. 17, 2017, The Washington Post). Despite this aspect, many major U.S. news outlets failed to detail Hamas’s open celebration of Qatar’s U.N. appointment. A Lexis-Nexis search of USA Today, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, and others, showed no mention of the tweet despite Qatar, the U.N., and Hamas being frequently covered topics.