Qatar may cut aid to Gaza at end of year

Lebanon's Al Akhbar (associated with Hezbollah) reports that Qatar's envoy to Gaza has warned that much of its funding to the poor in Gaza may end by 2020.

Mohammed Al Emadi told Hamas and other factions in the Gaza Strip that it would be difficult for Qatar to renew the $30 million it has been giving every month to help Gazans.

Al Akhbar said it received this information from Hamas officials. Palestine Today confirmed the story.

Qatar has been giving some 109,000 Gaza families $100 every month, along with paying for fuel, major building projects and other infrastructure. Qatar has been cooperating with Israel is providing this aid.

Hamas is hoping that either Qatar reverses the decision or that some of the tax revenues that the PA is refusing to accept from Israel will go directly to Gaza. This seems like wishful thinking.

Qatar has been the only Arab country that has seemed to actually care about Gazans beyond lip service. It has coordinated countless shipments of aid to Gaza with Israel. It has given hundreds of millions of dollars worth of aid while most Arab countries attend anti-Israel conferences and issue statements.

Yet even though only Qatar has walked the walk, the article says that Gazans resent the Qatari aid because Israel supports it. In the words of the writer, "Gazans know that what Doha offers is an Israeli interest before it is Palestinian."

That zero-sum thinking represents a lot of the problems of the Middle East in a nutshell.

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