Netanyahu: Qatar Violated UN Security Council Resolution on Harboring Terrorists

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended his country’s recent airstrike on Hamas terrorists in Qatar, saying Monday that the Gulf state was in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373.

That resolution, passed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, bars countries from harboring terrorists, and implies that other states have a right to self-defense against terrorists that are being sheltered by other nations.

Standing alongside U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio at a press conference in Jerusalem, Netanyahu fielded a question about the airstrike, after Rubio was asked how the U.S. could assuage its Gulf allies.

He said:

There’s immense cynicism and hypocrisy in the condemnation of Israel. After 9/11, the Security Council of the United Nations passed Resolution 1373, and that resolution said that states must not harbor, or give safe haven, finance, plan, or allow such actions for terrorists. It didn’t say some actions in this part of the world, or some nations cannot do it in this part of the world, but they can do it in another part of the world. And, of course, the United States acted very boldly against the terrorist havens that were given to al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, he terrorist haven that was given to the chief terrorist, [Osama] bin Laden in Pakistan. Those countries that are condemning Israel today did not come and say, “Well, what a terrible thing was done. The sovereignty of Pakistan was violated. The sovereignty of Afghanistan was violated.” You don’t have such sovereignty when you are effectively giving a base to terrorists in a place where they can ply their gruesome trade. So it’s the right of every country under international law to defend itself beyond its borders against those who would kill their citizens, murder them, en masse. That is what guided Israel.

Rubio, who spoke first, had said that the U.S. had engaged with its Gulf Arab allies, and that the focus would be on the future, not what happened in the past — in particular, the task of freeing the hostages and eliminating Hamas in Gaza.

He did not contradict Netanyahu’s statement that the Qatari regime was in violation of Resolution 1373 — a resolution that had been passed at the behest of the United States.