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Israel’s precise strike at Hamas headquarters in the petro-state sheikdom of Qatar happened about 23 months too late.
Every one of the reported targets has been sanctioned by the US government for terrorist activities.
Each one of them, by any moral or legal understanding, was engaged in war crimes.
They not only orchestrated and maintained a continuous conflict against Israeli civilians but also subjected the Arabs in Gaza to poverty, all while hoarding billions of misappropriated dollars and enjoying the comfort of their posh hotel rooms.
Even if it turns out that Israel missed these targets, Hamas leaders know there is no place to hide.
Among the targets was Khaled Meshaal, one of the founders of modern Hamas, whose net worth has ballooned somewhere between $2 billion to $5 billion.
Consider Khalil al-Hayya, who glorified the assault on women and the murder of children, calling it “a source of pride for our people” and proudly admitting to using Palestinian civilians as “shields for the resistance.”
Zaher Jabarin, known as the CEO of Hamas, siphoned billions of international aid to the group and procured funding from Iran and Qatar.
Nizar Awadallah, a longtime Hamas leader, had planned dozens of attacks on civilians.
And Ghazi Hamad, who promised his group would “repeat the Oct. 7 attack time and again until Israel is annihilated.”
Following 700 days of fruitless negotiations with these malicious individuals, Israel decided it had enough. None of them were diplomats or advocates of peace. Each one committed to eternal warfare.
There’s no possible scenario in which Israel didn’t inform the United States about its plan to target Doha, which sits near US military installations.
It’s implausible that Israel would attack without a green light from the president.
More than likely, Israelis held off while Trump attempted to craft a broader deal.
But Hamas was never going to stop.
It might well be the case that Qatar also knew the attack was coming and decided to untether its fortunes from Hamas.
Even so, the United States should decouple from this toxic theocratic city-state, which undermines American domestic politics by dropping billions into US schools, politics and media to gain influence and normalize radicalism and Islamist ideas.
Remember that Qatar blamed Israel “alone” for Oct. 7.
Without Doha’s financial backing, the attack never would have happened in the first place.
And if Qatar wanted the hostages released, it could have pressured the Palestinians to do so a long time ago.
Qatar perpetuated this charade to lift itself as a power broker. Its duplicitous and unctuous playing of all sides does nothing to help our national interests.
Qatar also surely realized that Oct. 7 had been a colossal blunder not just for Palestinians but for Islamists across the Middle East.
Since that day, Israel has decimated Hamas, killing thousands of its soldiers and eliminating virtually its entire leadership; it has decapitated Hezbollah’s fighting force, possibly allowing Lebanon’s leaders to try to dislodge the Iranian proxy militia from their country; it has precipitated the fall of the Assad regime, which had been in place in Syria for over 50 years; it has likely set back Iranian’s nuclear program for years, not to mention knocked out a massive number of armaments and defenses; and it eliminated top Houthi leadership, as well.
It’s a shame it took this long.
Imagine, if you can, Mexico hosting al Qaeda leaders in five-star Cancun resorts and giving them space for a headquarters in the year 2002.
Now, if your contention is that Hamas is the legitimate governing entity of the Palestinian people, imagine Mexico hosting Imperial generals as Americans fought the Japanese in Okinawa.
The United States didn’t conduct cease-fire talks with al Qaeda’s Ayman al-Zawahiri.
The only reason Israel spent years in negotiations with Hamas was to attain the release of hostages. And the Jewish state was willing to entertain unconscionable demands to save them.
It may never happen. But it was certainly never going to happen while the billionaires of Hamas conducted their operations in the safety of Qatar.
Those days are over.
David Harsanyi is a senior writer at the Washington Examiner. His most recent book, “The Rise of Blue Anon,” is now available.