Biden Admin: We Told Qatar to Eject Hamas

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Did Qatar tell Hamas to leave their country in anticipation of a change of course under Donald Trump? Did the Biden administration tell Qatar to give Hamas the boot? 

Has Hamas been told to leave at all?

The abrupt change in Qatar’s position with Hamas’ billionaire-leadership class came so quickly after the election that it appeared to reflect a desire to align with Trump. Not so, the White House told CNN overnight. The current administration has decided to cut bait on negotiations, they claim:

Qatar agreed in recent weeks to kick Hamas out of its country following a request from the US to do so, capping off months of failed attempts to try to get the militant group – whose top leaders reside in the Qatari capital of Doha – to accept a ceasefire and hostage release deal in the Israel-Hamas war, US and Qatari sources told CNN.

With efforts to pause the war – which has been a top priority for President Joe Biden – firmly stalled, US officials informed their Qatari counterparts about two weeks ago that they must stop giving Hamas refuge in their capital; Qatar agreed and gave Hamas notice about a week ago, sources said.

“Hamas is a terrorist group that has killed Americans and continues to hold Americans hostage,” a senior administration official told CNN. “After rejecting repeated proposals to release hostages, its leaders should no longer be welcome in the capitals of any American partner.”

Hamas insists it hasn’t been ejected at all:

“What was reported in the Israeli media about Qatar agreeing to expel Hamas from Doha following a US request has no basis and is merely a pressure tactic. This has been repeated without any evidence,” the Hamas official told CNN on Saturday.

So far, though, Qatar isn’t denying it. 

Did this really come from the Biden team? I raised this possibility yesterday in the Headlines entry. The Biden team has tried for almost a year to get another hostage-for-prisoners swap, only to have Hamas renege on previous positions and refuse to negotiate. With Yahya Sinwar out of the way, Hamas has no other excuse for not negotiating in good faith. Literally the only pressure left to apply is to eject them from the country that’s sheltering Hamas leaders from Mossad hit squads. As soon as they leave Qatar, every one of them is a dead man eventually — even if they run to Tehran, as Ismail Haniyeh could tell them if he wasn’t already dead. 

This should have happened months ago. It’s been clear all year that Hamas was not negotiating in good faith. Our umbrella of protection against the leadership that started a war with a mass slaughter and atrocities during a US-brokered cease-fire should have remained open for only the briefest of periods. The question of election timing may not be about Trump at all, but about Joe Biden and Kamala Harris pandering to the pro-Palestinian radicals in their party’s coalition, the incentive for which ended Tuesday night. They wanted a hostage deal that would force Israel into absurd concessions to (a) give the Biden-Harris administration a seeming achievement in foreign policy, and (b) to jolly along the radicals while trying to claim friendship with Israel. 

Nor is this a new policy. The only reason Hamas has offices in Doha is because Barack Obama pressed the Qataris to set them up in their capital in 2012 for the purposes of “indirect lines of communication.” (Bear in mind that Hamas was and still is listed by the State Department as a terrorist organization.)  Last year, the Qatari ambassador to the US explained that in the pages of the Wall Street Journal to argue against the accusation that Qatar had decided to support Hamas:

Following the escalation in Gaza, Qatar is in contact with all parties, urging calm. Our international partners such as the U.S. have asked us to mediate to secure the release of more hostages. We have been engaged with Israel, other countries and Hamas. The release of several hostages as a result of Qatar’s mediation is a positive step, but the situation remains delicate.

It is therefore deeply unsettling that false narratives about Qatar have emerged in the media with the apparent intention of escalating the conflict. These narratives create obstacles for constructive mediation efforts and aim to derail negotiations. Almost as soon as the conflict began, Qatar became the target of a sustained disinformation campaign about the nature of our role as a mediator for peace in the region. These campaigns have spread falsehoods about the purpose of the Hamas political office in Doha and the financial aid that Qatar provides to Palestinians. “Commentators” assert that Qatar is a funder and sponsor of Hamas—which is untrue.

The Hamas political office in Qatar was opened in 2012 after a request from Washington to establish indirect lines of communication with Hamas. The office has frequently been used in mediation efforts, helping to de-escalate conflicts in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Since 2012, Hamas has launched three major wars with Israel — in 2014, 2021, and then on October 7 of last year. (This does not include constant missile and rocket attacks from Gaza during the entire period.) In each case, Hamas violated US-brokered cease-fires that relied on those “indirect lines of communication” in Qatar. During those twelve years, thanks to Barack Obama and Joe Biden, the Hamas leadership club in Doha all became multi-billionaires off of the aid that was supposed to flow to Gaza residents. 

The question isn’t whether Biden finally asked Qatar to put an end to this grotesque charade. It’s why Obama and Biden set it up in the first place, why we allowed it to continue after 2014, and why we didn’t give them 48 hours to capitulate or face the Mossad on October 8.