Who loves Hamas? After Hamas jihadis murdered 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7, growing numbers of leftists do. Can we now add the Empire State Building to the list?
The iconic New York landmark announced on X Sunday: “Tonight from midnight until sunrise, we will shine in burgundy and white to celebrate Qatar National Day.” Back in 2016, Qatar shelled out $622 million to buy 9.9 percent of the Empire State Building, and so if the building’s managers wants to honor one their principal shareholders, that’s their business. The timing in this case, however, is particularly ghastly, and raises questions about the propriety of having not-quite-friendly states owning a piece of American landmarks.
It was just over two months ago, on Oct. 7, that Hamas leaders including its top leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashal and others, were caught on video happily watching news of the Hamas massacres in Israel, and then prostrating themselves in prayers of gratitude to Allah for the killing of Jews. They were in a plush office in Doha, the capital of Qatar.
Hamas’ “Political Bureau,” as opposed to its military, i.e. terrorist, wing, has been located in Doha since 2012. Haniyeh and Mashal live not in Gaza, but in sumptuous digs in Doha. Reuters reported that “a bipartisan group of 113 U.S. lawmakers on Oct. 16 sent a letter to President Joe Biden asking him to put pressure on countries who support Hamas, including Qatar. They asked that Qatar, a major non-NATO U.S. ally and a channel for U.S. dialogue with the Taliban since a U.S. pullout from Afghanistan, to expel Hamas leadership. ‘The country’s links to Hamas...are simply unacceptable,’ the letter said.”
It is emblematic of the Biden regime’s America-Last leadership that the principal response to that letter appears to be the lighting of the Empire State Building in Qatar’s colors for its national day. What’s more, Qatar never should have been allowed to buy a piece of the Empire State Building in the first place. Investigative journalist Daniel Greenfield reminds us of what the 9/11 Commission Report said about Qatar’s role in the 9/11 jihad attacks. The Commission noted that one of the key masterminds of the attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, like Haniyeh and Mashal, lived in Qatar.
Even worse, the 9/11 Commission report states that “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. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed evaded capture (and stayed at large to play a central part in the 9/11 attacks).” ABC News reported in 2003 that in the 1990s, the FBI and CIA came extremely close to capturing Mohammed, but “he was protected and tipped off by a member of the royal family in Qatar, Abdullah Bin Khalid al-Thani.”
Now that the heat is on, Qatari officials have signaled that they are, in Reuters’ words, “open to reconsidering the presence of Hamas in Qatar.” That’s wonderful, but the Qatari government’s aid to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is a spectacular indication of which side that government is really on. As if that weren’t enough, Qatar is also a key supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood.
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A captured internal document details the Muslim Brotherhood’s plan for the U.S.: “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.”
It’s a strange idea that the unbelievers would sabotage their own house. But when the Empire State Building lit up for Qatar’s National Day, that idea came more clearly into focus. Qatar has bought its way into the Empire State Building and no doubt a great deal more, and thereby blunted the force of any criticism it might incur for favoring the forces of the global jihad. The proprietors of the Empire State Building and numerous other properties and businesses in America today have economic reasons for looking the other way as Haniyeh and Mashal kneel down in Doha to thank Allah for the massacre of Israelis. The bottom line dictates that they see nothing, as long as the cash keeps rolling in.
Well, that’s the American Way, isn’t it? But if the entire nation behaves as if only the bottom line matters in the end, there won’t be any nation at all for very much longer.
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