Israel’s Shin Bet security service recently concluded that Qatari funds helped subsidize Hamas’s force buildup ahead of the October 7 massacre. Qatar is pleading not guilty.
Doha accused the Shin Bet on March 5 of “scapegoating Qatar” after the security agency published a report summarizing the findings of an investigation into its failures leading up to the morning of October 7, 2023. The Shin Bet identified “the flow of money from Qatar to Gaza and its delivery to Hamas’s military wing” as one key reason why Hamas was able to build up its offensive power. In its rebuttal, Doha insisted that “no aid has ever been delivered to Hamas’s political or military wing.” Doha’s defense is at best misleading given that Qatar transferred funds to Gaza in part to subsidize government salaries — and the government in Gaza was run by Hamas. What’s more, aid is fungible. If Doha paid the salaries of Gaza’s government workforce, it would have freed up other resources for military purposes.
Israeli Assumptions Were Shattered on October 7, 2023
Qatar has long been a financial patron of Hamas. The former emir of Qatar pledged $400 million for civil projects in Gaza while visiting the enclave in 2012. Then in 2018, Qatar began transferring millions of dollars per month to Gaza primarily to pay civil servants. The first disbursement of $15 million arrived in Gaza in three suitcases in November 2018. Qatar upped its annual contribution to $360 million in 2021. The Israeli government green-lighted these payments thinking that the Qatari aid would help stabilize Gaza. At the time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the arrangement was intended “to return calm to [Israeli] villages of the south” and “prevent a humanitarian disaster” in Gaza. “I think at this time, this is the right step,” he said. However, Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack shattered Israeli assumptions.
Qatar’s Terror Finance Problems Aren’t Limited to Hamas
Qatar has historically served as a haven for private funders of terror. And despite taking steps to crack down on terror finance, Qatar hasn’t sufficiently addressed the problem. In its 2023 evaluation of Qatar, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) — an international money laundering and terror finance watchdog — found “major inconsistencies between the type and extent” of terror finance prosecutions and convictions in Qatar and the emirate’s “risk profile.” Qatar hasn’t convicted a single terror financier since 2018, but terror financiers evidently still roam about the emirate. In October 2023, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned a Hamas financier based in Qatar whom Treasury said has “close ties to the Iranian regime” and “was involved in the transfer of tens of millions of dollars to Hamas.”
Congress Should Take Stock of Qatar’s Fight Against Terror Finance
The U.S. and Qatar signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in 2017 pledging to jointly combat terror finance. The full text of the MoU was never made public, so it is difficult to assess whether Doha is living up to its commitments. The Shin Bet’s recent findings should inspire Congress to exercise greater oversight of the 2017 agreement. Specifically, lawmakers can request that the U.S. Government Accountability Office review and report back on the implementation and enforcement of the 2017 U.S.-Qatar MoU.
Natalie Ecanow is a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). For more analysis from Natalie and FDD, please subscribe HERE. Follow Natalie on X @NatalieEcanow. Follow FDD on X @FDD. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on foreign policy and national security.