(JNS) Criticizing Israel’s strike on Hamas leaders in Qatar recently, US President Donald Trump said that he was “very unhappy about the way that it went down,” and called Qatar “a great ally to the United States.” If Team Trump were to objectively evaluate that statement, they would see that, in fact, Qatar represents an immense threat to US interests.

Qatar has a two-faced policy, presenting itself as a friend of the United States while simultaneously undermining American interests. On the one hand, the abundantly rich Persian Gulf emirate hosts the largest US military base in the Middle East and helps mediate between the United States, its allies and enemies such as Hamas.

On the other hand, Qatar shelters and finances Islamist terrorist groups. In fact, Qatar’s dictatorial regime holds the same Islamist ideology that drives these terrorist groups. Thus, it’s not surprising that the sheikhdom sponsors the world’s leading source of Islamist propaganda: Al Jazeera.

What’s more, Qatar finances anti-American educational programs at US colleges and universities to the tune of billions of dollars. Further, it uses its vast wealth to influence American politics toward unsavory ends. This influence has reached the highest levels of US power, including the presidency.

It’s time Washington realizes that Qatar is not an ally. It is an enemy and should be treated as such—having its role in American diplomacy and military operations dramatically reduced, its ownership of US assets curbed and its news operations in the US market shut down.

Qatar hosts and finances Islamist terrorist groups. The Gulf state has long hosted top Hamas leaders, including those who helped plan the Oct. 7 massacre. Before that savage attack, Qatar gave Hamas roughly $30 million per month.

The Qatari government denies financing Hamas’s terrorist activities, claiming it only funds civil and humanitarian projects in the Gaza Strip. Documents seized by the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza, however, say otherwise. For instance, in a 2019 document, Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh reportedly told Qatar’s foreign minister that Doha was “Hamas’s main artery” for fundraising.

In 2021, Haniyeh reportedly wrote to Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s senior leader in Gaza and the mastermind of the Oct. 7 massacre, that Qatar’s emir had “agreed in principle to supply the resistance discreetly, but he does not want anyone in the world to know.” Outrageously, despite Qatar’s generous financing of terrorists and providing them refuge, the United States continues to treat the Qataris as allies.

Qatar owns and funds the world’s largest source of Islamist propaganda. The emirate spends between $400 million and $500 million per year on the network, making it one of the world’s most well-financed state media companies. Al Jazeera is a platform for global jihad, antisemitism, Holocaust denial and anti-Israel terrorism. It has provided media platforms to Islamist figures ranging from Osama bin Laden to Muslim Brotherhood leaders, to Jabhat Al-Nusra figures, and runs programming sympathetic to Islamist narratives.

No wonder Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait and the Palestinian Authority have shut down Al Jazeera operations for bias and incitement in their territories.

Last January, it broadcast a special episode of the investigative program “What is hidden is greater,” reframing the events of Oct. 7 as “legitimate military action” and justifying it as part of broader resistance against “occupation,” while downplaying or omitting details of civilian atrocities.

Some staff have even been exposed as terrorists themselves. In October 2024, for example, the IDF revealed it had documents proving that six Al Jazeera “journalists” were operatives for Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Two of these operatives—Hossam Shabat and Anas Al-Sharif—were later killed in targeted Israeli airstrikes.

How can a country so supportive of Islamist terrorists and Islamist propaganda be America’s ally?

Qatar funds anti-American education at US colleges and universities. In fact, the emirate is the largest foreign donor to US post-secondary institutions, giving them nearly $6.6 billion since 1981, according to a report by the Jewish Virtual Library. According to Open-Source Intel, however, as much as $100 billion of Qatari funds to colleges, universities and kindergarten to 12 schools are undocumented.

At Brown University, the Choices Program, led by professor Omer Bartov, who falsely argues that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, has received a billion dollars from Qatar. It is also creating a curriculum for more than 8,000 schools nationwide that erases the presence of Jews, Christians and other minorities in the Middle East, and indoctrinates American children with anti-Jewish, anti-Christian and anti-democratic ideas. A country that funds education that undermines core American values is no friend of the United States and its allies.

Qatar buys and hires its way into high-echelon American politics. For instance, the emirate recently tried to gain favor with Trump by gifting him a $400 million luxury Boeing 747 jet.

Members of Trump’s inner circle have also been subject to Qatar’s influence. For example, Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East, sold a hotel he owned in New York, which was causing him financial and legal grief, to Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund for $623 million. US Attorney General Pamela Bondi previously worked as a foreign lobbyist for Qatar, earning $115,000 a month between 2020 and 2022. Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff, was co-chair of a lobbying firm at the time it represented Qatar’s embassy in Washington, and FBI director Kash Patel once served as a Qatar embassy security and intelligence consultant. According to The Wall Street Journal, Qatar has a list of 250 people in Trump’s inner circle who could influence him. Such compromised relationships strain propriety and credibility.

Qatar claims to be an ally of the United States, but doesn’t behave like one. Indeed, what kind of ally finances and shelters terrorists, funds anti-American and anti-Israel educational programs, and sponsors the world’s leading source of Islamist propaganda while using its vast wealth to convince America’s leaders to look the other way? This is not the behavior of an ally, but of an enemy.

Doha’s behavior is unacceptable and contrary to US interests. We cannot tolerate terrorists taking refuge within Qatar’s borders, its funding of terrorist groups, its fiscal support for anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism at US academic institutions, and its efforts to buy influence with America’s leaders. It’s time to divest from Qatar.

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