Hypocrisy, Ignorance, and Israel’s Mistakes

By Sacha Wigdorovits

BILD.de summed it up perfectly: “Money for Terror Instead of Fighting Terror,” headlined Germany’s largest online news outlet. The headline referred to the EU’s decision to cut funding to Israel following its attack on five top Hamas leaders in Qatar.

“There is hardly a rogue state in the world that the EU does not court and finance. Only against Israel does EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen take a stand, announcing that all bilateral payments to the Jewish state will be suspended,” BILD.de writes. “This means that from now on, the EU will send taxpayers’ billions to countries ruled by terrorists or those that support terrorism—but not to the one state that fights terrorists like no other.”

As examples, BILD.de cites EU aid to Afghanistan (€141 million), Iran (€126 million, including €10 million this year), and the Palestinian Authority, which the EU has pledged €620 million to this year.

The commentary from Germany’s largest and most popular media outlet concludes: “The current policy of Ursula von der Leyen and her colleagues is just another in a long line of EU blunders. Instead of sanctioning Russia, Europe filled Putin’s war chest. Instead of confronting the mullah regime, Europe transferred billions. In the fight against terror, Europe once again stands on the wrong side of history.”

There’s nothing more to add—except this: Switzerland is no better than the EU.

The Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) also condemned Israel’s strike on the five Hamas leaders in Doha, calling it “an unacceptable violation of Qatar’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

This, mind you, came just 24 hours after the same department had remained silent when two Palestinian attackers shot and killed six Israelis in Jerusalem. Only the Swiss ambassador to Israel, Simon Geissbühler, expressed his condolences to the victims and their families—but without condemning the Palestinian terrorists.

The example of the EU and Switzerland’s left-leaning FDFA—whose head, Ignazio Cassis, is pro-Israel but too weak to rein in his own officials—illustrates the hypocrisy of European governments in their dealings with Israel.

When it comes to the Jewish state, double standards prevail like nowhere else. Did the EU impose extra sanctions on Russia after its member state Poland was attacked by Russian drones?

And did the Swiss Federal Council harshly rebuke Russia for this “violation of Poland’s sovereignty”? No. The FDFA merely expressed its “concern” about the incident.

The reactions of the EU and Switzerland to Israel’s strike in Qatar are not just hypocritical—they also reflect a staggering level of ignorance and naivety.

Qatar is not some innocent or harmless country. Alongside Iran, it is one of the world’s largest sponsors of terrorism and radical Islamism.

Without Qatar, Hamas would never have been able to sustain its decades-long campaign of terror against Israel.

The top leaders of Hamas—mass murderers—enjoy a billionaire lifestyle in Doha, Qatar’s capital, funded in part by EU, UN, and Swiss aid money intended for the Palestinians.

And that’s not all. Qatar also sponsors the radical Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, from which Hamas originated. For this reason, Qatar was boycotted between 2017 and 2021 by its Arab “brother states”: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain.

The Muslim Brotherhood is active throughout Europe, including in Switzerland. Under the guise of charitable organizations, it infiltrates and radicalizes Muslim communities wherever it can—with the goal of Islamizing Western society.

Qatar also operates the television network Al Jazeera. Its English-language channel presents itself as moderate, but its Arabic-language channel serves as a radical Qatari propaganda outlet.

Qatar is therefore not only a danger to Israel—which it still refuses to officially recognize—but also to the entire West, including Switzerland.

The Russian crimes in Ukraine—and now also in Poland—should not be downplayed. But in the long run, the threat Qatar poses to us is just as great, if not greater, than that of Russia.

Qatar may not threaten us militarily or technologically, but it uses its billions in petrodollars to infiltrate our societies and economies and to buy political goodwill.

Examples include hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup, buying the top European football club Paris Saint-Germain, investing in the Volkswagen Group, and acquiring stakes in Credit Suisse.

The most dangerous aspect, however, is Qatar’s political and social infiltration of Europe through organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood. With Qatar’s financial support and blessing, these groups can pursue their insidious mission of radical Islamist indoctrination and infiltration in our midst.

In all this, Qatar’s ruler, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, does not act in the spotlight like Russia’s President Putin—he operates quietly and strategically. In the words of Bertolt Brecht: “Because only those in the light are seen; those in the dark are not.”

Qatar is, in essence, the classic wolf in sheep’s clothing. In Europe, people either haven’t realized this yet—or they don’t want to—because they welcome the flood of dollars, oil, and liquefied natural gas from the Gulf state.

Israel, however, is well aware of Qatar’s double game and the Islamist agenda behind it. The supposedly “selfless” mediation efforts of the Emirate during ceasefire talks with Hamas did nothing to change that. In its strike on the Hamas leaders in Doha, Israel made only one mistake: it failed to succeed.

Sacha Wigdorovits is the president of the association “Fokus Israel und Nahost,” which operates the website fokusisrael.ch. He studied history, German studies, and social psychology at the University of Zurich and worked, among other roles, as a U.S. correspondent for SonntagsZeitung, editor-in-chief of BLICK, and co-founder of the commuter newspaper 20 Minuten.