The government of Qatar had a surprise for President Trump on his recent visit to the Middle East.
That was the release of the last American-born hostage being held in Gaza.
Edan Alexander, 21, was freed by the Qatari-funded group Hamas as a gesture to Trump.
Two questions obviously arise from that “gesture.”
The first: If Hamas can just release hostages like this why won’t they release all of them, whether they were born in America or not?
The answer to that is clear: It is because the Qataris and Hamas don’t want to release all the hostages.
They want to keep hold of them for as long as possible to exert as much leverage as possible.
The second question is less easy to answer.
If Qatar is so close with Hamas, how on earth can they be regarded as an ally of the United States?
It is that second question that has hovered over the president’s trip this week.
Jet ‘gift’ questions
In the main, the visit to the region has been a tremendous success.
The huge, hundreds of billions of dollars investment deal that President Trump announced in Saudi Arabia is something everyone can celebrate.
As is the president’s pushing of Saudi Arabia and perhaps even Syria to join the Abraham Accords.
These are significant steps toward peace in a region that badly needs it.
But the smells emanating from Qatar give off a far nastier aroma.
Much of the media has tried to overshadow the trip by focusing on the Qatari “gift” to Trump of a new $400 billion jet to replace the allegedly jaded Air Force One.
But it’s not just Democrats and the media who are questioning Trump accepting such a gift.
Republican Senator Susan Collins criticized Trump’s decision to accept the gift, pointing out that the gift seems “rife with political espionage.”
That is to seriously understate matters.
Because as the New York Post reported yesterday the Qatari jet actually belonged to the former Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hama bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani.
His initials — HBJ — are even in the plane’s tail number.
And a very different type of tale lies under that.
HBJ is one of the chiefest villains in the Middle East.
Before, during and since being the prime minister of Qatar, he has been one of the chief funders of Hamas.
He was the person behind the $30 million monthly payments that the Qataris gave to Hamas in Gaza.
It is also thanks to HBJ that so much of the leadership of Hamas still get to still live in luxury in Qatar’s best 5-star hotels.
And HBJ’s love of terrorists doesn’t stop with Hamas.
The former Qatari prime minister has also been accused of sheltering and supporting Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) — the man who masterminded the 9/11 attacks on this country.
In the years before 9/11, the FBI learned of a plot to blow up multiple planes and traced it to KSM — who was at the time living in Qatar.
Although the FBI wanted to arrest KSM, it seems to have been decided that it was too sensitive to arrest somebody who was being hosted by the Qataris.
The 9/11 Commission report found that KSM had wired money to one of the perpetrators of the original World Trade Center bombing.
And as the Commission also said, “The U.S. Attorney obtained an indictment against KSM in January 1996, but an official in the government of Qatar probably warned him about it.”
And so KSM fled to Afghanistan.
Much of this was all thanks to that other three-lettered man: HMBJ.
Past foe, now pal?
How could a jet owned by such a man end up flying the president of the United States around?
I hope the CIA sweeps it for bugs at least.
But in reality this is exactly how the Qataris always operate.
Because of their vast oil wealth, this small state punches far above its weight.
The country has only a few hundred thousand citizens, who are waited on by foreign nationals who effectively work as slave labor.
At the same time that it has poured money into Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
In the US, they have put billions of dollars into our institutions — including our universities.
And, of course, their foreign influence-peddling has fixated on Washington, DC, for years.
People who would normally be the first to kick off about foreign money influencing our politics are strangely silent about the issue of Qatar.
Often because they have been bought off themselves, or hope to be able to drink from the Qatari money hose at some point in the future.
As even a Trump loyalist like Steve Bannon said this week in an interview with podcaster Winston Marshall in Washington, DC, “Let’s be blunt, Qatari money’s flowing through here like crazy.”
Yet, as Bannon also recalled, during Trump’s first term, it was the Qataris who were the people in the region who refused to do what Trump wanted.
Back then the president was trying to put together a tough agreement which would stop terrorist financing from the Middle East.
In particular he wanted to stop Qatar and other countries in the region from funding the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots like Hamas.
Other countries played ball.
And we have seen in recent years the amazing progress that a country like Saudi Arabia has been able to make — partly as a result of this.
But it was the Qataris who absolutely refused to do what Trump wanted.
As Bannon recalled, “We show up in the Middle East and we understand that Qatar’s not prepared to sign it. Hey — they’re not shy about getting up in your face. To me Qatar is the railhead of the problem because of their money.”
That’s absolutely right.
So how can a country that is so opposed to America’s interests and has so blatantly refused to do what Trump has asked in the past be regarded as an ally?
And such a good ally that the president of the USA can safely accept the gift of a plane from them?
At some point that’s a question that needs an answer.