Witkoff’s shocking words on Hamas and Jolani raise serious concerns

We all thought that, after October 7^th, most people finally realized what Israel had been dealing with in Gaza but, unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be that way. We can all agree that, after the October 7^th massacre, things have changed. Hamas, a terrorist genocidal Islamo-Nazi organization supported by Qatar and Iran, perpetrated the worst pogrom against the Jews since the Holocaust. Hamas is now a problem for all those who sincerely want peace and who are worried about the spread of Islamist ideology.

Hamas has become a transnational ideology, as we have seen in many street demonstrations and university campuses in the West, bringing together the Islamists and the far-left through the antisemitic common denominator often disguised as “antizionism”. As explained by Noor Dahri, director of the UK-based think tank Islamic Theology of Counter-Terrorism ITCT: “Hamas isn’t only an organization but an ideology. They have started in Israel but will end in the West. “

We can almost all agree on the fact that Hamas not only needs to pay for what it did on October 7^th, but it also needs to be eradicated from Gaza because it is a threat to Israel’s security and to peace in the area.

Then, there is Steven Witkoff, the new special envoy of the Trump administration, and the controversial words he used to describe Hamas during an interview with Tucker Carlson (a “leading platform” for Jew-hatred, according to Amichai Chikli, the Israeli Minister for Diaspora Affairs). It is unclear why Witkoff was even there, but this is what he said, as reported by the Times of Israel:

“What we heard in the beginning of this conflict is Hamas is ideological, that they’re prepared to die for a whole variety of reasons. I personally — and I talk to the president about this… I said to him, ‘I don’t think that they are as ideologically locked in. They’re not ideologically intractable. I never believed that…They strap the suicide vest onto young kids who don’t know what they’re doing… They tell them a story.”

And again: “Once you understand that [Hamas] wanted to live, then you were able to talk to them in a more effective way”.

Has Witkoff ever read Hamas’ covenant? This is puzzling, considering that Witkoff even claimed to have watched the October 7^th massacre video and described it as horrifying: “It was horrific. It is about mass rapes. There were pictures of Hamas people cutting the head off of an Israeli soldier… It’s beyond what I’ve ever seen.”

Despite all this, Witkoff said that a negotiator needs to be “dispassionate”, and the video can “taint the way you are going to feel about Hamas”. Why? Because “it’s important to understand Hamas’ motivations”. Because: “You have to know what Hamas wants… and then you’ve got to figure out what you can give them that allows them to walk out because that’s what’s needed here”, he said.

Let’s see. What could Hamas really want? A terrorist organization that massacred, raped, burnt alive men, women, children, elderly people, that pledged to do it again and whose aim is to destroy Israel.  How is it not “as ideologically locked in as they are often portrayed”?

Why is Witkoff insisting so much about the motivations of a genocidal terrorist organization like Hamas and about finding a “deal”? Why was he even appointed to such a sensitive position if he still hasn’t realized Hamas’ real objective? Since when should democracies cut deals with genocidal terrorist organizations?

“What does Hamas want? I think they want to stay there till the end of time. They want to rule Gaza, and that’s unacceptable. We had to know that… What they want is unacceptable” Witkoff said. “What’s acceptable to us is that they need to demilitarize. Then maybe they could stay there a little bit… be involved politically,” he continued.

Here, Witkoff contradicted himself since you cannot get rid of them while at the same time allowing them to be politically involved in Gaza. Either Hamas leaves, or it remains. Plus, if you allow them to be politically engaged, it means that they are not eradicated, which goes against Israel’s alleged objective of the war and it would be a victory for Hamas.

Trump’s envoy thinks he can deal with Hamas as if it were some potential Manhattan real estate business partner, instead of a ruthless terrorist organization, and this is a matter of serious concern. Not even the Biden administration went as far as he is doing.

Then comes Witkoff’s thought on Qatar, because that’s the real issue:

“…They are a small country that wants to be recognized as a peacemaker. The president understands this, and I understand it now as well…People accuse them of having ulterior motives—that’s nonsense…Qatar, like the other Gulf states, wants stability—they want to do business with the United States. They used to be more religiously radical, but today, they have moderated. There’s no doubt—they are our allies.”

Well, if according to Witkoff, Hamas is “not as ideologically locked in as they’re often portrayed”, it couldn’t be any different regarding Qatar, could it? The envoy praised the Qataris as “peacemakers”, but he may not even know what Taqqiya is (the Islamist dissimulation and secrecy of intent and ideology), which would imply having no clue of how Islamist extremism and terrorism operate, and that would indeed be a problem for someone covering any type of role in the Middle East.

And again, “Qatar wants stability?” Is that why in 2017, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates embargoed Qatar, cut diplomatic ties and issued a trade embargo until Doha complied with a list of demands, including shutting down Al-Jazeera and closing ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, through which Doha was trying to destabilize the region?

Qatar has been sheltering the Hamas leadership for many years, and it still does, despite requests and insufficient pressure to have them expelled. The Qataris have been using Hamas as a tool for hegemonic objectives. Qatar has a very long history of supporting Islamist terrorism since the early 2000s, from the Chechens to Al-Qaeda in Syria.

In December 2014, U.S. Congressmen Peter Roskam and Brad Sherman requested that the U.S. place sanctions on Qatar and provide Congress with a full report on their financing ties to Hamas, al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood. Indeed, sanctions were never applied.

In February 2018, in an in-depth report for the UK government, intelligence specialist Steven Merley highlighted Doha’s role in the financial support for jihadist groups in Syria such as the former Jabhat al-Nusra and the “Army of Conquest Coalition” and concluded that: “The UK should exert maximum pressure on the Qatari government to cease any support to Islamist terror”. In July 2020, a private security contractor who worked for the German security services revealed to the German weekly news outlet Die Zeit that Doha was financing Hezbollah.

As if that were not enough, Qatar emerged as a major exporter of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Islamist ideology (Hamas is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood) to the Muslim diaspora in the West, with a cascade of money to the numerous Islamic organizations and associations in Europe, as exposed in the book “Qatar Papers” by French investigative journalists Christian Chesnot and George Malbrunot. The goal? Maintain and expand the hegemony over organized Islam in Europe to influence its internal policies towards Muslims and foreign policies.

This is just a very small portion of Qatar’s extremist activity. Is this all “nonsense” to Witkoff? Of course, Qatar is “an ally” for the United States, since it is hosting the Al Udeid Air Base and is supporting US regional strategy, while at the same time winking at Iran. Doha is also a major financier in the West, not only in academia but also in sports and politics, as demonstrated in Europe by Qatargate. All this unfortunately implies that Qatar can continue to benefit from extreme tolerance.

As to Witkoff, why is he so fond of Qatar? Could it be because of his previous business deals with Doha? Is the Trump administration trying to find a way to politically legitimize Hamas? Is the attempt supposed to please Doha? All at the expense of Israel? Or is it just business? As Witkoff told Carlson: “They (Qatar) want to do business with the United States”.

Let’s recall that Hamas was already politically legitimized back in 2007, and the result was rockets fired against Israeli cities, terror attacks, and the October 7^th 2023 massacre.  Let’s also keep in mind that Witkoff pressured Israel to accept a deal with Hamas as soon as the Trump administration took office in January 2025.

In the same interview, Witkoff also stated that “Jolani is a different person from what he was before”. Jolani, Hayyat Tahrir al-Shams, whose men brought Sharia law to Syria and who are slaughtering political opponents and non-Sunnis? There is a good reason why Israel does not trust Jolani and that is why Jerusalem is supporting the Druze autonomous area in Syria, because it needs a buffer zone against the new Qatar-Turkey-Ikhwani backed regime in Damascus.

It is interesting to notice how Witkoff’s statements came just a few weeks after the direct talks between Hamas and another US envoy, Adam Boehler. A move that generated heavy criticism by the Israeli government, especially, since Boehler claimed that he wanted to identify with the “human elements of those people (Hamas)” and even referred to officials in the terrorist organization as: “…good guys like us. They’re pretty nice guys”. Boehler also referred to Israeli hostages as “prisoners,” and used the term “hostages” to describe Palestinian terrorists jailed in Israel, therefore adopting a rhetoric common with Hamas. (Read here “The Boehler-Hamas honeymoon behind Israel’s back”).

Among all this mess, one thing seems clear, there is something really wrong going on with Trump’s envoys to the Middle East and with the new administration’s plan for the Middle East. It’s not difficult to understand that Qatar wants Hamas to survive and Jolani to maintain power in Syria.Witkoff and Trump want keep the Qataris happy, but this goes against any sort of effort to maintain Israel safe and to eradicate Islamists from the West and the Middle East. Iran is a problem, and Qatar is part of the problem too. It’s time for Washington to pick clear sides.