A counter-extremism group has called for the boycott of Qatari-owned hotels including the Savoy and the Ritz over the country’s links to Hamas.
Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the terrorist group, planned and celebrated the massacre of 1,400 Israelis from his office in Doha, the capital of Qatar, where he is allowed to live in luxury.
This weekend the Counter Extremism Project (CEP), a non-profit international policy organisation, called for a boycott of three hotels in London that are owned by senior Qataris or the country’s sovereign wealth fund until “the Al Thani royal family surrender the orchestrators” of the October 7 attack.
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CEP, which has previously campaigned against Islamist terrorism and Iranian nuclear armament, claimed “Qatar’s role in the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas in Israel is indisputable”.
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It said in a statement: “It is untenable that the Qatari government should continue to profit from its business interests while funds are used to support the perpetrators of mass murder.”
Qatar, the gas-rich Gulf state that hosted the men’s football World Cup last year, is a significant ally of Britain and the US, providing natural gas and a market for arms, and hosting Nato bases. The country allowed Hamas to set up a political office in Doha in 2012, and is now the key intermediary in negotiations to release hostages, including Britons, captured during the October 7 raids. On Friday two Americans held hostage in Gaza were released after talks brokered by Qatar.
When Rishi Sunak spoke to the country’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, last week to discuss “urgent efforts to secure the release of hostages”, the prime minister “reiterated his complete condemnation of Hamas’s terrorist attack”, but this was not reciprocated by Al Thani. Calls for a tougher stance on Qatar have grown louder in recent days, with detractors pointing to an October 7 statement by Qatar’s foreign ministry, saying Israel was “solely responsible for the escalation due to its ongoing violations”.
Mark Wallace, CEP’s chief executive, a former US ambassador to the UN, said: “The Al Thanis ... must enact real justice by detaining the criminals they harbour. Until they do, Qatar should feel the full weight of economic and diplomatic isolation.”
The Savoy Hotel Limited is part-owned by Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority. The Ritz was bought by Abdulhadi Mana al-Hajri, a Qatari businessman who is the brother-in-law of Qatar’s rulers in 2020. The shadow minister Sir Chris Bryant asked the prime minister whether the UK should have some “tough words with Qatar in particular about why it has hosted so many people from Hamas?”
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CEP also called for a boycott of the Connaught hotel in Mayfair, which is owned by Hamad bin Jassim, Qatar’s prime minister when Hamas relocated to Doha.
Bob Seely MP, a Tory member of the Commons foreign affairs committee, said: “We may not like some of the stuff Qatar does, but they are a vehicle by which you talk to Hamas.” A boycott of the Connaught’s sister hotels — Claridge’s, the Berkeley and the Emory — has also been called for by the former London rabbi Pini Dunner, Jewish News reported.
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Qatar’s foreign policy has ensured the provision of hundreds of millions of dollars to Gaza since 2014, largely in aid. A spokesman for Qatar said: “A Hamas political office was opened in Qatar in 2012 in co-ordination with the United States government, following a US request to open a communication channel with Hamas. Hamas’s political office has frequently been used ... to stabilise the situation in Gaza and Israel.”
Maybourne Hotel Group declined to comment. The Ritz said: “The wellbeing of all guests and colleagues is paramount.”
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Fairmont Hotels, the owner of the Savoy, was contacted for comment.
