Mick Hartley

Nicole Lampert in the JC – Why is our government hosting Qatar while threatening Israeli leaders with arrest?

There have been so many incidents that have seemed upside down since October 7 that sometimes it is all too much to bear. The celebrations in the street on October 8, the way the BBC keeps parroting Hamas lies, the fact that the murder of Israelis led to record antisemitism in the UK, the Jew hate marching down our streets every weekend while the police watch on. I could go on.

But few examples have been more stark, in my eyes, than what is happening this week.

Yesterday I watched our Prime Minister tell a Labour Friends of Israel lunch that his government stands behind the ‘independence’ of the ICC to issue warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant. That means – however much they are presently pussyfooting around the issue – our government will attempt to arrest the Israeli politicians should they step foot on UK soil.

Meanwhile, just a day later, we are literally rolling out the red carpet for the leaders of Qatar, the nation which has for years, housed and funded Hamas….

There is an irony too that of the many things Israel is accused of doing, Qatar gets away with barely a peep from the sanctimonious crew.

Just a few years ago, it bought a World Cup, used slave labour to create the arenas and we stood by and let it happen. Controversial Qatari minister Nasser Al-Khelaifi – not only runs top French team Paris Saint Germain but is also chairman of the European Club Association, making him one of the most influential people in European football. Visit Qatar is an official sponsor of the UEFA Euros 2024 and 2028.

And on greenwashing, how is a country which owes its huge wealth to being one of the largest exporters of liquefied natural gas being hosted by one of the most famous eco-warrior families in the world? Not even Just Stop Oil, the eco-militants who march with the Palestinian cause every weekend seem to be bothered by this visit – where are their protests?

The country’s influential Al Jazeera news network has 70 bureaus and broadcasts a diet of anti-Western material to 150 countries with an audience of approximately 430 million people. This is a hostile voice – one that America and Israel had the good sense to close down.

And where to start with their human rights record? Qatar is a country where you can be locked up for criticising the Emir, where hundreds of thousands of migrant workers have next to no rights, where women need the permission of a male guardian on whether she can marry, study or travel, and where gay people are jailed for their sexual orientation.

There's some irony, I suppose, in the way that Qatar wields its financial clout so brazenly, in the way that Jews were traditionally supposed to. Money talks.