Home > News > SFI: We Demand that Qatar Stops Funding Terror
8 September, 2014
WE DEMAND THAT QATAR STOPS FUNDING TERROR
In recent weeks over 5,000 rockets were fired from Gaza towards Israel. Numerous terror tunnels, with the sole aim of kidnapping and killing Israelis, were found and destroyed by the IDF. Across the globe different Jihadist group seem to be well armed and ready to launch attacks not just on Israeli targets but seemingly any country in the world. The question is; who is financing it?
The answer is (in part) Qatar.
NOW WE MUST ACT!
Sussex Friends of Israel (SFI), The Pro-Israel Response Group (PIRG) and The Israeli Forum Task Force (IFTF) have joined together to launch a campaign that demands that Qatar stop funding terror and we need you to join us. On Sunday 21 September at 2pm we shall be launching the campaign by protesting outside the Qatari Embassy in central London to show that we will not sit idly by as Qatar finances world terror and we need you to help us send the message:
“KICK TERRORISM OUT OF FOOTBALL”
We are asking that anybody who attends might do so dressed in their favourite football shirts, with their favourite football flags (including Israel’s) to help highlight the appalling decision to award Qatar the 2022 World Cup. The message we shall send on the 21st is not just our support of Israel, not just that we abhor Qatar financing terror but also that it is time to “Kick Terrorism Out Of Football”.
We hope that all the various Jewish Leadership groups will be able to join us for this incredibly important opportunity to show our disgust at Qatar’s continued refusal to stop funding terror.
After speaking with the Police and CST and due to the minimal amount of space directly outside the Qatari Embassy we need to limit the numbers for the actual rally to 150. The Police have designated us an area but for anyone who arrives late or just ‘happens’ to be in the area please feel free to wave and let us see who you support. In short, we might only be allowed 150 at the rally but if anybody wants to walk passed the Embassy at about that time that would of course be your legal right. And if you happen to be wearing a football shirt and holding an Israel flag, well…
More details to follow but on behalf of SFI, PIRG and IFTF we look forward to seeing as many of you as possible in the 21st
I would also like to stress that this event is only the START of an on-going campaign that we hope will make the authorities in Qatar realise that their flagrant disregard for international law and for common decency is not going unnoticed.
THE FACTS
In January 2013, French politicians accused the Qatari Government of giving material support to Islamist groups in Mali. In 2011 the Washington Times reported that Qatar was providing weapons and funding to Abdelhakim Belhadj, leader of the formerly U.S. designated terrorist group, Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) and then leader of the conservative Islamist Al-Watan Party. Until a few years ago Qatar was one of the few countries in the world with a ‘Taliban’ Embassy. Recently, a group called the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) raised about $6.5 million in Qatar. The group is led by Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi, a top Muslim Brotherhood cleric who calls himself the ‘Mufti of Martyrdom Operations’. Qatar now appears to be the biggest state sponsor of the Muslim Brotherhood.
There is also growing evidence that Qatar might even be financing ISIS. As the US magazine, The Atlantic puts it, “Qatar’s military and economic largesse has made its way to Jabhat al-Nusra”, an al-Qaeda group operating in Syria. Less than two weeks ago, Germany’s development minister, Gerd Mueller, was slapped down after pointing towards Qatar for funding Islamic State (ISIS). While there is no evidence to suggest Qatar’s regime is directly funding ISIS, powerful private individuals within the state certainly are, and arms intended for other jihadi groups are likely to have fallen into their hands. According to a secret memo signed by Hillary Clinton, released by Wikileaks, Qatar has the worst record of counter-terrorism cooperation with the US.
Recently the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said during a France 24 television interview. “I accuse them (Qatar and Saudi Arabia) of inciting and encouraging the terrorist movements. I accuse them of supporting them politically and in the media, of supporting them with money and by buying weapons for them”.
QATAR FUNDING HAMAS
In 2009, then-Senator Kerry warned: “Qatar can’t continue to be an American ally on Monday that sends money to Hamas on Tuesday”.
Qatar has contributed to the emergence of Hamas as a major contender to the Palestinian Authority. Qatar hosted Hamas leader Khalid Mash’al, first in 1999 when he was expelled from Jordan, and then again from 2012, when he left Syria. Qatar invited him to attend the 2009 Arab Summit in Doha, where he was seated next to Arab leaders, to the chagrin of the PA.
If we go back a few years further, we find that Qatar was on the US list of state sponsors of terrorism. It was only taken off the list because it offered to host a US military base.
With the war raging in Gaza, Israeli leaders have begun to single out Qatar for its support of Hamas. During a meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on July 23, now-former Israeli President Shimon Peres slammed Qatar for becoming “the world’s largest funder of terror”.
“Qatar does not have the right to send money for rockets and tunnels which are fired at innocent civilians. Their funding of terror must stop. If they want to build then they should, but they must not be allowed to destroy”, Peres said.
THE EVIDENCE IS IRREFUTABLE; QATAR, EITHER DIRECTLY BY THE GOVERNMENT OR BY INDIVUALS WITHIN QATAR, IS FINANCING HAMAS AND OTHER ISLAMIC TERROR GROUPS AND HOW DOES THE WORLD REWARD THEM? BY AWARDING THEM THE BIGGEST FOOTBALL TOURNAMENT IN THE WORLD, THE 2022 FIFA WORLD CUP!
QATAR AWARDED THE 2022 FIFA WORLD CUP
In December 2010, to widespread astonishment, Qatar was awarded the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Since then more than 500 Indian migrant workers have died and more than 380 Nepalese workers died in 2012 and 2013, many of ‘cardiac arrest’ and ‘work place accidents’ while building the sports stadia.
Qatar’ s support for terrorism should be enough to deny it the World Cup show; but what many do not know is that the World Cup tournament allegedly landed in Qatar due to corruption and graft.
The evidence points to Qatar’s bribing of FIFA officials to receive the right to host the prestigious tournament. A Sunday Times investigation, based on a huge number of emails, reported that the decision to award the World Cup to Qatar had been influenced by payments made by former FIFA vice-president, Muhammad bin Hammam, a Qatari national. Bin Hammam has already been removed from his position for buying votes in his campaign to become FIFA president.
Bin Hammam was allegedly in contact with the Qatar bid committee and hosted a number of lavish functions where he handed out cash gifts with the aim of securing the bid for Qatar. Qatar’s Shaykh Muhammad bin Hamad A Thani, a brother of the current Emir and chair of the Qatari bid committee, described Hammam as “the bid’s biggest asset”.
Two fundamental questions seem to have been left unanswered by FIFA and the Qatari Government;
1. If the Israeli national team qualifies for the 2022 World Cup will they be allowed into the country?
2. As a Jew, a Zionist and with Israeli stamps in my passport will I be allowed into Qatar to support England (and hopefully Israel?)
FIFA PRESIDENT, SEPP BLATTER, HAS ALREADY SAID THAT “IT WAS A MISTAKE TO AWARD QATAR THE WORLD CUP IN 2022”.
NOW WE MUST MAKE THE WORLD SEE THAT BY AWARDING QATAR THE WORLD CUP, IT HAS REWARDED A STATE THAT IS UNEQUIVOCALLY GUILTY OF FINANCING INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM
Simon