Monday, March 18th | 9 Adar II 5784

Subscribe
June 18, 2018 2:34 pm
0

‘We Support Palestinian Resistance,’ Qatar’s Emir Assures Iranian President

× [contact-form-7 404 "Not Found"]

avatar by Algemeiner Staff

US President Donald Trump meets with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani at the White House on April 10, 2018. Photo: Reuters / Kevin Lamarque.

Qatar’s emir highlighted the Gulf nation’s support for the “Palestinian resistance” during a phone call on Monday with the Iranian President Hasan Rouhani.

In quotations from the call published by official Iranian media outlets, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani reportedly “emphasized that Qatar’s policy is to support the Palestinian people, adding, ‘We support the resistance of the Palestinian people and continue our policy.'”

“Resistance” is a euphemism often used by pro-Palestinian officials to describe acts of terrorism against Israel.

The comment — during a conversation in which Rouhani referred to Israel pejoratively as “the Zionist regime” — could be seen as further proof that Qatar’s campaign over the last year to market a positive image of itself to the US Jewish community was disingenuous.

Earlier this month, two of Qatar’s registered foreign agents in the US responsible for outreach to Jewish leaders — restaurateur Joey Allaham and lobbyist Nick Muzin — suddenly announced that they were terminating their relationship with the emirate. In a statement on June 7, Allaham denounced his former employers, declaring that “Qatar enjoys portraying themselves as the purveyor of peace in the region, but this could not be further from the truth.”

Allaham and Muzin’s earlier efforts triggered an angry split in the US Jewish community over whether to engage in dialogue with Qatar — which has provided millions of dollars to Islamist organizations dedicated to Israel’s destruction, including Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Sunni paramilitaries in Iraq and Syria.

Several Jewish leaders have traveled to Doha to meet with the emir, among them Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, prominent civil rights lawyer and Israel advocate Alan Dershowitz, and Zionist Organization of America President Mort Klein.

In his call with Rouhani, Emir al-Thani added that he would “never forget” Iran’s solidarity with Qatar in its year-long dispute with Saudi Arabia and a coalition of allied Arab states. He assured the Iranian president that he was “personally observing” the development of closer relations with Tehran.

Share this Story: Share On Facebook Share On Twitter

Let your voice be heard!

Join the Algemeiner

Algemeiner.com

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.