Why Is the Trump Administration Selling Weapons to the World's Leading State Sponsor of Terrorism? – by Robert Williams for the Gatestone Institute – 30.05.25

Michael Julien
3 days ago
11 min read

While it is understandable that President Donald Trump is eager to bring business deals to America, since when has Qatar been "a friendly country that continues to be an important force for political stability and economic progress in the Middle East"? The answer is: Never.

"Qatar is the leading sponsor of terrorism in the world, more than Iran." — Dr. Udi Levy, a former senior official of Israel's Mossad spy agency who dealt with economic warfare against terrorist organizations, Ynet News, April 18, 2024.

There is hardly an Islamic terrorist group, in fact, that Qatar does not support. Meanwhile, it acts as both the arsonist and the firefighter.

"Qatar has been playing a deadly double game with the U.S. for many years. It supports all Islamist terrorist organizations (ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Taliban, Hamas, and Hezbollah). Worst of all, in 1996, it hid future 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) in Doha, and when the FBI came to arrest him, informing only the Qatari Emir, KSM disappeared within hours." — Yigal Carmon, MEMRI, November 15, 2023.

The Muslim Brotherhood's "Explanatory Memorandum" explicitly states: "The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions."

Qatar's media empire, Al Jazeera, is the mouthpiece for the Muslim Brotherhood. It is this Arabic-language television network that has spread the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood throughout much of the world. Even Israel and the Palestinian Authority, which agree on virtually nothing, both banned Al Jazeera – as have Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Bahrain.

When the US sells advanced weapons to Qatar, it is literally arming an organization that openly funds terrorism, spreads radical Islamic ideology and straightforwardly seeks to undermine America, Israel and the West.

The Trump administration, in seeking to make America great again, was supposed to move away from the policies of the Obama and Biden administrations, which appeased terrorist and rogue states such as Iran and Russia. But regarding Qatar, the Trump administration appears to be pursuing effectively the same extremely dangerous policies that endanger not only US allies in the Middle East such as Israel, but the United States itself.

"US colleges and universities have accepted $6.25 billion from Qatar since 2001. However, Qatar's total spending likely exceeds that figure... Qatar is a major exporter of Islamist ideology, which it amplifies on the Qatar-owned Al Jazeera network. By pumping money into the American higher education system and across the United States, Qatar avoids scrutiny as it advances hostile ideologies." — Natalie Ecanow, of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, in testimony to the Texas Legislature House Committee on Homeland Security, Public Safety & Veterans' Affairs, April 2, 2025.

A good place to start would be not to sell weapons to Qatar and not to pretend they are a friendly ally. Instead, the US should start looking for an alternate place, such as the United Arab Emirates, to relocate American forces from Qatar's Al-Udeid Air Base.

It is high time for the United States to free itself of the subversive forces working to destroy it from within, especially if America is to remain a beacon of freedom in the world, let alone "making it great again." A good place to start would be not to sell weapons to Qatar and not to pretend they are a friendly ally.

The Trump administration will apparently sell Qatar a large weapons package, including eight long-range maritime surveillance drones and hundreds of missiles and bombs worth around $2 billion. A document from the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, notifying Congress of the initially approved sale, stated:

"This proposed sale will support the foreign policy and national security objectives of the United States by helping to improve the security of a friendly country that continues to be an important force for political stability and economic progress in the Middle East.

"The proposed sale will improve Qatar's capability to meet current and future threats by providing timely intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, target acquisition, counter-land, and counter-surface sea capabilities for its security and defines. This capability is a deterrent to regional threats and will primarily be used to strengthen its homeland defence."

According to Natalie Ecanow, of the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies (FDD):

"If the sale is completed, Qatar will be the first country in the region to purchase these advanced drones, which possess an advanced suite of sensors and can employ a variety of munitions."

A quick look at what exactly Qatar does, and still is, reveals that for decades, Qatar has cultivated a close relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood, whose motto is:

"Allah is our objective; the Prophet is our leader; the Quran is our law; Jihad is our way; dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope."

Qatar has been the main financier of Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, to the tune of up to $360 million a year.

"Qatar is the leading sponsor of terrorism in the world, more than Iran," said Dr. Udi Levy, a former senior official of Israel's Mossad spy agency who dealt with economic warfare against terrorist organizations.

In the US, a key internal Muslim Brotherhood document, "An Explanatory Memorandum," was revealed during the 2008 Holy Land Foundation Trial. This memorandum, discovered by the FBI in 2004 among the archives of Ismail Elbarasse (a Brotherhood archivist), outlines the Brotherhood's strategy for the United States. The document explicitly states:

"The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions."

The phrase "by their hands" refers to the Brotherhood's stated intention to use America's own institutions, freedoms, and legal systems to undermine it from within, rather than by overt violence. The strategy is to infiltrate and manipulate existing structures—media, government, academia, and civil society—so that the transformation is achieved using the mechanisms of the host society itself.

Qatar's media empire, Al Jazeera, is the mouthpiece for the Muslim Brotherhood. It is this Arabic-language television network that has spread the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood throughout much of the world. Even Israel and the Palestinian Authority, which agree on virtually nothing, both banned Al Jazeera – as have Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Bahrain.

In 2017, Israel's then Communications Minister Ayoob Kara said:

"Lately, almost all countries in our region determined that Al Jazeera supports terrorism, supports religious radicalization. And when we see that all these countries have determined as fact that Al Jazeera is a tool of the Islamic State [group], Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, and we are the only one who have not determined that, then something ludicrous is happening here."

Kara also said, "Freedom of expression is not freedom to incite."

John Mirisch, chief policy officer of the Israeli-American Civic Action Network, wrote in March 2025:

"For way too long, Qatar and Al-Jazeera have been peddling propaganda as 'journalism,' with much of the propaganda aimed at the Arab world in an effort to destabilize the region, whip up Main Street sentiment against Israel, and to derail the Abraham Accords. Any criticism of Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood on Al-Jazeera is strictly forbidden...."

There is hardly an Islamic terrorist group, in fact, that Qatar does not support. Meanwhile, it acts as both the arsonist and the firefighter.

Yigal Carmon, president of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), wrote on November 6, 2023:

The Qataris made a request to the US to buy the drones back in 2020, but not even President Joe Biden wanted to sell that weapons package to them; only now – after the Biden administration held off approving such a sale for four years – the Trump administration has apparently decided instead to reward those who support terrorists in the Middle East and the US, and their anti-Western ideologies.

Qatar has also been a leading funder of both the Taliban in Afghanistan – and offering to be the negotiator between them and the US -- and of the terrorist group Hamas, which, on October 7, 2023, launched an invasion of Israel, murdering 1,200 Israelis.

During the Hamas-Israel war in 2014, Qatar's current Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Defense Affairs Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al Thani tweeted, "We Are All Hamas" and "O Jerusalem, awake, awake. We will never succumb to the darkness. O Jerusalem, rise up, rise up. Revive the memory of al-Qassam. O Jerusalem, shoot flames of fire." Al Thani has referred to former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh as "brother prime minister" and in 2021 he offered: "Israel's control of the U.S. is clear. We must plan how to influence the decision-makers in the U.S."

Qatar has more than succeeded in influencing decision makers in the US, as shown by America's offer last year to have Qatar manage shipments through a US-built floating pier on the coast of the Gaza Strip, which would have delivered weapons to Hamas along with humanitarian aid and would have preserved the terrorist organization. The pier quickly collapsed due to stormy sea conditions. Now the US is offering Qatar a new weapons deal.

What this gift to Qatar shows is that Trump seems to be selecting some people who are offering terms that publicly make the president look ridiculous -- whether for Iran to be allowed to enrich uranium for "peaceful purposes," or accepting that the International Atomic Energy Agency alone might inspect Iran's nuclear and missile facilities in a possible future deal.

While negotiating with Hamas for the release of Israeli hostages, Trump's special envoy Steven Witkoff -- who was bailed out by Qatar in a $623 million hotel deal -- praised Qatar by saying that the terrorist-supporting Gulf state was "doing God's work."

The Trump administration has thankfully made it clear that it will refuse visas to foreign students who are Hamas supporters, but at the same time, the administration is arming Hamas's financial backer.

US Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) said in January 2024:

"The Qatari government spends uncountable billions of dollars promoting and even funding the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and other terrorist groups. They have either bought or intimidated huge parts of Washington, D.C., into silence. It's not at all surprising they would consider the few remaining outspoken opponents of the Muslim Brotherhood in Congress to be Qatar's enemies. It is long past time for the U.S. to re-evaluate the U.S.-Qatari relationship."

Whatever happened to that badly needed re-evaluation?

Other Senators unfortunately are shilling for Qatar. US Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS) recently said that "Qatar has been a great ally to America," while feigning ignorance of Qatar's insidious influence on US university campuses through its donation of billions of dollars. Marshall insinuated that Qatar's massive funding of American academia is benign instead of appearing to have led to the wave of antisemitic protests and riots on US campuses since the October 7, 2023 massacre of Israeli civilians.

According to testimony given on April 2, 2025 by the FDD's Natalie Ecanow to the Texas Legislature House Committee on Homeland Security, Public Safety & Veterans' Affairs:

"[US] colleges and universities have accepted $6.25 billion from Qatar since 2001. However, Qatar's total spending likely exceeds that figure... Qatar is a major exporter of Islamist ideology, which it amplifies on the Qatar-owned Al Jazeera network. By pumping money into the American higher education system and across the United States, Qatar avoids scrutiny as it advances hostile ideologies."

"Qatar is currently the largest foreign donor to US universities," according to a recent report by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP).

"Despite its close ties to the United States and other Western countries, Qatar has also built an extensive network of Islamist partners dedicated to expanding its influence. It hosts, supports, and represents the Muslim Brotherhood; maintains ties with Iran; hosts the Taliban; has supported and maintained an office for Hamas and its exiled leadership; and has backed militias in Syria and Libya."

The influence that Qatar has bought extends far beyond colleges and universities and into K-12 schools, according to ISGAP.

"This report examines the Choices Program, a national education initiative for K-12 social studies curriculum housed at Brown University that combines licensed curriculum units, free online content, and professional education workshops to provide a range of resources for secondary school classrooms. The program, used by 8,000 schools in all fifty states, reaches over one million students...

Analysis of program materials, particularly those concerning the Middle East, reveals concerning patterns:

• Progressive delegitimization of Israel through content changes across editions;• elimination of key historical context and balanced perspectives;• downplaying of significant diplomatic achievements like the Abraham Accords;• introduction of increasingly partisan theoretical frameworks;• systematic changes in terminology and map presentations...

Our investigation identified significant discrepancies between Brown University's public statements and documented evidence regarding external influence over the Choices Program, including:

• the understated relationship with QFI;• the misrepresentation of the nature and extent of QFI's involvement in workshop content, teacher engagement, and curriculum distribution;• the lack of transparency concerning donor influence on content development."

Qatar is hard at work, subverting the United States. Right up there with it is China, also infiltrating American K-12 education.

Trump recently issued an executive order requiring transparency in the foreign influence on US campuses, emphasizing that it would address Chinese and Qatari activity in American academic institutions, but it will take much more than that to reverse the decades of foreign Qatari and Chinese propaganda that have permeated US campuses, especially the Ivy League.

It seems oddly schizophrenic to have one branch of the US government going after Qatari influence in academia, while another US government branch is selling the Qataris lethal drones with which it could theoretically supply to Hamas, ISIS and other terrorist groups to wreak havoc in the Middle East and beyond.

Now it seems that Trump's commitment that, "As long as I am President of the United States, Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon," is in danger of turning into pabulum as well.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21657/selling-weapons-to-qatar/

For this article in pdf, please click here:

Robert Williams is based in the United States.

© 2025 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Pictured: Qatar Emeri Air Force F-15 fighter jets escort President Donald Trump's Air Force One into Doha, Qatar on May 14, 2025. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Why Is the Trump Administration Selling Weapons to the World's Leading State Sponsor of Terrorism? – by Robert Williams for the Gatestone Institute – 30.05.25

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