Simon Henderson Q&A: Qatar’s Outsized Role in the Middle East
"Qatar does not support Hamas, Qatar supports the Palestinians,” Qatari Foreign Minister Dr. Khalid Al Attiyah declared in a CNN interview that aired this week. Yet some questions remain. The small Middle Eastern country--which now-former Israeli president Shimon Peres recently called “the world’s largest funder of terror”--has been singled out for playing an outsized role in many of the region's current conflicts, including the war between Israel and Gaza. Simon Henderson, a fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy and director of the Institute's Gulf and Energy Policy Program, answers a few questions about the country's involvement with Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and more.
Why did Qatar reportedly give Hamas $400 million in 2012?
The 2012 visit to Gaza by the then-emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani was the first real evidence that Qatar had decided to support Hamas in preference...