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Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY. But the surest way to guarantee that those hostages never get released is to pass this resolution.

I get it. We may not like the fact that we have to be negotiating with a terrorist organization. We may not like the fact that someone in the region has to be the conduit for those talks. But we don't live in a world of fantasy; we live in a world of reality.

And the reality is, without Qatar playing a role, as they historically have, to try to unwind crises in the Middle East more broadly and specifically between Israel and Hamas, there is no existing alternative. If you don't want the hostages released, then pass this resolution.

Further, with great respect for my colleague, I think this resolution is fundamentally dangerous when it comes to protecting broader U.S. interests in the region.

We have 10,000 Americans right now based in Qatar, mostly at Al Udeid Air Base. That airbase allows the United States of America to project power and to protect our interests throughout the region.

It is naive to think that you can pass a resolution downgrading our status with Qatar without there being an impact on that base, our personnel there, and our ability to use that base as a means to protect our interests around the region.

Qatar is the third largest customer of U.S. defense systems in the world. There are a lot of American jobs at stake when it comes to our relationship with Qatar. And the Qataris, over and over again, respond when America is in crisis. They housed more than 70,000 Afghans during the evacuation of our forces and of Afghan allies. Almost nobody else in the world would do that. But the Qataris said yes because the United States asked them.

They are an imperfect ally. They are an imperfect ally. This is a repressive regime with a bad history on human rights and worker rights, but they are a critical ally.

But more to the point of the Senator's resolution, the Senator's main critique is that Qatar hosts Hamas, a terrorist organization. I can understand why some bristle at that notion of an ally of the United States playing host to Hamas. Qatar plays host to Hamas because they were requested to do so by the United States. Hamas established an office there because the United States asked them to do that in 2012 because we knew we needed an ability to talk to Hamas.

Qatar played a contributing role in Egypt-led negotiations to get a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in 2014, 2019, and 2021. Why? Because we were able to talk to Hamas through their presence in Qatar.

And yes, Qatar has been a conduit to send money to Hamas. A lot of people may bristle at that notion, as well--our ally Qatar sending money to the Hamas political organization inside Gaza, as they have done for years. Qatar did that at Israel's request. Israel approved, in a security Cabinet meeting in 2018, an arrangement whereby Qatar, through their relationship with Hamas, would send money into Gaza ``in coordination with security efforts to return calm [in] villages of the south, but also to prevent a humanitarian disaster'' in Gaza. That was the Israeli position.

So I understand the discomfort of an ally having a relationship with Hamas. It has come at the request of the United States and at the request of Israel and is absolutely vital to protecting our ability to get hostages out.

If you want to make sure those hostages never leave, then cut off Qatar's role as an intermediary. You want to fundamentally harm U.S. interests in the region, you want to shut down our airbase, you want to eliminate the ability of Qatar to help us again when we are in need, as we were as we evacuated Afghanistan--then downgrade their status.

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